The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-05-09
INTERESTING CUBAN LETTER
THE FUTURE CAPITAL OF THE
CUBAN REPUBLIC.
Matanzas De San Carlos San severino--
Visit to the Ancient Forts which Oar
Guns Demolished.


A Visit to the Ancient Forts WHICH Oar
Guns Demolished.
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
and Courier.)
Washington, D. c., May 5, 1898.
The old city of Matanzas-with four
centuries behind it and yet more brill
liant history ahead-has long been
called "a nest of rebellion" by Spanish
officials and 1.-THE birthplace of patrio-
tism" by the patriots themselves. 1t is
Cuba's second city in population,
wealth and commercial Importance
perhaps first in beauty and healthful-
ness, and 1t is destined to become OF
greater interest in the near future as
the capital of the Cuban Republic. Its
population of about sixty thousand in
time of peace, was largely made up OF
the descendants of titled grandees from
old CASTLE; yet it's sudden decline to
half those figures was due to the fact
that thousands of its best citizens, in
Guiding professional men, merchants
and sons of wealthy families went to
join the insurgent army. The vice
president of the embryo republic and
his secretary of state-Senors Mendez
de Capote and Moreno de la Tore
were both born in Matanzas also the
Guiteras brothers, Jose M. Galvoz, AL
berto Ortez, and many other prominent
revolutionists. Gomez forces are al
ready at the door of their new capital
so to speak, being encamped within the
province, prepared, soon as our troops
are landed, to establish headquarters
here and transfer their seat of govern
ment from Cubitas. They might have
done so long ago had the times been
ripe for holding the easy conquest. OF
course Matanzas can be more readily
taken than Havana, and, what is
equally to the purpose, will be retained
with less difficulty, in spite of any force
which Spain may bring by land or sea.
Havana will doubtless be the ultimate
capital of the reconstructed country
on account of it's superior natural ad-
vantages, larger harbor and handsome
buildings, but not for years to come.
A long time will be needed to make it
habitable, according to modern ideas,
after this cruel war is over. Think of
the hundreds of thousands w no have
died in it during the last three years
of starvation and disease in the tenn
ing hospitals and prisons of Los Fos-
SOS, to say nothing of the numbers
killed in battle; and all these dead bur-
led in shallow rented graves, from
which they are speedily evicted to the
charnel yard. Think Of the absence of
sewerage and other sanitary regula-
lions in a populous city amid all these
horrors, and the eternal presence of
smallpox and yellow fever; and you
cease to wonder why t he broad bay,
washing it's shores, so reeks with inn
purities that no fish can live in it. If
ever thorough "house-cleaning was
required, after four hundred years of
neglect and no scavenger but the car
ron birds, it is in Havana!
Meanwhile Matanzas, sixty miles to
the eastward, on another broad and
beautiful bay, will do well for a tempo
rary capital, as Philadelphia served us
before Washington was ready. Its
shallow harbor is sheltered within an
amphitheater of hills, and may be
SIIOIlSly OlClC HocbliluCl Wiii
furnish his ward the money. At pres
ent it has only the old castle of San Sc
verino and another stone-walled fort
of equally ancient date at the entrance
Of the fnarbor, several miles from the
city, and the remains of the new earth
works which our guns destroyed the
other day. BY the way, the report OF
Captain-G General Blanco to his govern
ment concerning "the bombardment OF
Matanzas'' was a. fair sample of Span
ish bombast Both the forts and the
earthworks are so far from the city
that the latter was in no danger, and
not a single shell struck within three
miles of it.
Late last March I spent several days
in Matanzas, a guest in the palace OF
Senior Don de Armos, the new Attono-
mist governor of the province. This
gave me a fine inside view of things In
the city which will presently figure ir
our news columns as the seat of the
Cuban republic. The so-calIed pal.
ace" on the Plaza d'Armas, is a very
large two-storied, flat-roofed casa OF
stone, stucco and adobe, faced by COW
cred archways, or "portales," as they
are called. According to Spanish Gus
tom, the ground floor is given up to of
fees, store-rooms, quarters for soldier.
and police, stables, kitchens, etc.
while the upper story is the officia
residence Of the rulers of Cuba's rich
est province. A wide flight of stone
steps, worn into deep hollows by the
passing feet of three hundred years
leads to enormous rooms, each like {
town hall. In the vast, echoing salas
with their marble floors and long lines
of crystal chandeliers, more fortunat,
governors than the present encumben
have given splendid receptions to thu
beauty and chivalry of Matanzas. Tit
state dining-room, where ceremoniou
banquets of many courses are solemn,
partaken, is so big that a telephon,
service between host and guests would
be an Improvement. In the grea
sleeping apartments the high posted
brass bedsteads, with crowns atop
brought from Barcelona generation
ago, all canopied, curtained, beribbonec
and beruffled in the gorgeous style O
the mother country-are set exactly il
the center of the bare expanse of mar
BILE flooring, and look like an oasis IL