The Mena star., 1898-06-01
CUBA'S DEBT TO REPORTERS
NEWSPAPER MEN RISKED THEIR
 LIVES DAILY AT HAVANA.
Dinamite Was Struggled in as Candy Dangerous Dispatches Wrap
 ped Up in the Laundry.

Key West, May l3. Now that news no longer has to run the gauntlet from Havana, albit the censor is now an American naval officer af this end of the line, some stories may be freely told that were contrabanded of print while the actors were still in reach of Blancos arm. These tales, once told in whispers, are now coming out on the shady side of the hotel porch as "reminiscences of the anti blockade days.
 The Havana custom authorities and best They seldom called bluff that was made with bold front, and the things that went on under their noses almost daily would have cost half the force their jobs had the facts ever got ten to the palace. The writer landed in Havana some months ago with a bundle of telegrams in his pocket that ought to have put him in Cabanas To have carried the papers concealed would have been concession of con- scious guilt in case of discovery; so the bearer simply folded the messages and stuffed them into the big State department envelope that held the passports The officials who received the passports all saw the messages, but never questioned their contents.
 That incident was mild, however, compared with the exploit of another and more radical correspondent who, being in full sympathy with the Ha- vana junta. undertook to convey them about thirty pounds of dynamite at time when they needed it badly and when the lines on fillbustering were drawn unusually close. He simply packed this explosive in two big wooden candy boxes with covers and put in layer of big chocolate creams over oiled paper on top The special agent at the gangway of the steamer knew him and when he start ed down the ladder to the shore boat said to him joxingly:
 What's that you've got--dyna- mite?"
 ''You guessed it, said the una bashed scribe. Take some up to Blanco."
 The astute special agent took gen erous handful of the chocolates and the dynamite went ashore.
 "Letters from the woods, as the in- surgent lines are vaguly termed Tn Havana. were almost as dangerous as dynamite, but they were passed through the lines quite as of ten. One of the several newspaper men whe went into the field returned during Weyler's regime with enough letters to have hanged him, several being official documents for the junta in New York. There were three Span ish officials on the train that brought him into Havana from Sagua la Grande, and he had reason to think that they had marked him and were going to arrest him at the depot in Havana. Just before the train stop ped he called his Cuban servant and, taking bundle of soiled shirts from his grip, tossed them to him with the remark, Take them up to Blank 5 meaning a laundry with very pro Spanish proprietor The man got off with the bundle which had the ln- surgent letters safe inside it, and when, three minutes later, the cores pendent and his baggage were rigidly searched, there was nothing found on him but a couple of very pro-Spanish letters written him by some obliging Cuban friends for just such an emer- gency.
 Another of the correspondents who is close in touch with the Cubans and who has done more for them than any other newspaper man in Key West, tells with smile how he helped a Spanish captain to capture Cuban standard, which exploit made the cap tain major forthwith and landed him on Weyler's staff at that place The standard was made to the order of the Cuban junta n Havana and the correspondent and the captain took ii out with them one night with small detachment of Spanish cavalry from Matanzas.
 Coming to good dark place in the road the two conspirators raised a wal