The San Francisco call., 1898-05-16
NO HOPE FOR
 THE STARVING Hardly a Reconcentrado Yet Lives in Cuba'S
 Capital.
When Aid Comes From This Country There Will Be
 Few to Assist.
Spaniards Seize Relief Supplies, and Cubans Are Given Over to
 "Weyler's Chickens.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

KEY WEST, May 1.-The conditions in Havana resulting from the blockade are being gradually brought out by in- formation obtained from fishing smacks and other small vessels captured off the coast.
 Affairs at Havana now appear to be worse than at any time since the Wey- Ter regime. The fishermen who at first braved the blockade for the high price which fish brought in Havana, now run the risk not for money, but for food. A number of these have been captured by the vessels of the blockading fleet, nearly all of them being released after having been questioned by our officers. They all unite in picturing the state of affairs at Havana as being pitiful in the extreme.
 The Machias caught two fishing boats accumulated all the facts obtainable along the blockading line, the latest news being obtained through two cap lures made by the United States gum boat Machias, which has just returned here for the first time since the block ade opened, making the longest single service of any blockading vessels off Cuba.
 Tn Machias caught two fishing boats off Havana just before her return. The Americans offered the fishermen money for part of their catch, as the fish were needed on board. But the fishermen demurred at taking money. they preferring to have bread, and add ing that they were desperately hungry.
 When questioned as to the prevalence of yellow fever at Havana, the fishermen said there was little sickness at the Cuban capital, but they added there was much starvation. The reconcen- trados, they said, were nearly all dead, or have been expelled from the city to die in the suburbs.
 This agrees with other reports from
 Havana and Matanzas, to the effect that the Spanish authorities on the de- parture of the American Consul, seized all the relief supplies and applied them the uses of the army. The Span ish then drove the reconcentrados into the desolated sections of the country between the coast towns and the insurgent lines, the regions de- scribed by Senator Proctor and others as being too barren and desolate to sup port grasshoppers
 The insurgents themselves have been chary of receiving reconcentrados, and hundreds of the latter who had no per-
 sonal friends in the insurgent camps | had been left to starve between the lines.
 About Havana the situation Is even worse Hundreds of reconcentrados from Los Fosos, the big reconcentrados' barracks in Havana, were too weak to walk out of town, and fell in the streets or died in the suburbs. where fiocks Of vultures-"Weyler's chickens" as they are now termed in Havana-have feasted on the remains.
 Tn Matanzas the feature of the situa- ton Is equally distressing.
 The fishermen who have been brought here are soon reconciled to capture, which means food and decent treat | ment They say that if the blockade continues much longer bread riots must | follow in all the large towns, as food is reserved exclusively for the army. thus l forcing many people to enlist who would not otherwise do so. Finally. tho | fishermen say that certain Spaniards | threaten to burn Havana or blow the city up in the event of the authorities deciding to capitulate to the American l forces.