The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-05-17
Starvation Has Finished
the RecOncentradOS.
A FEAST FOR VULTURES
The Psll of Starvation Hangs Over
Havana-Victtms Of Spanish Cruelty
Dropping Dead from Hunser-The
Situation Pftiable in the Extreme
The Spaniards Seize the Supplier
Sent by Americans for the Starving
People Of Cuba.

Copyright by Associated Press)
Key West, Fla, May 15.-The condi-
tions in Havana, resulting from the
blockade, are being gradually brought
out by information obtained from fish
ing smacks and other small vessels cap
tured off the coast.
Affairs at Havana now appear to be
worse than at any time since the Wey-
Ter regime. The fisherman who at first
braved the blockade for the high price
which fish brought in Havana now
run the risk not for money but for the
food which they obtain from the sea.
A number of these men have been cap
tured at different times 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 things
at Havana as being pitiful in the ex-
treme.
The Associated Press dispatch boat
Kate Spencer has accumulated all the
facts obtainable along the blockading
line, the latest news being obtained
through two captures made by the
United States gunboat Machias, which
has just returned here for the first time
since the blockade opened, making the
longest single service of any blockading
vessel off Cuba.
The Machias caught two fishing boats
off Havana, just before her return here.
The Americans offered the fishermen
money for part of their catch, as the
fish was needed on board. But the
f-l Ii
They preferred to have bread, adding
that they were desperately hungry.
When questioned as to the preva-
lence of yellow fever at Havana, the
fishermen said there was little sickness
at the Cuban capital; but they added
there was much starvation. The re-
concentrates, they said, are 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 Span
ish authorities, on the departure of the
American consul, seized all the relief
supplies and applied them to the uses
of the army. The Spaniards then drove
the reconcentradoes into the desola ted
sections of the country, between the
coast towns and the insurgent lines,
the regions described by Senator Proc
tor and others as being too barren and
desolate to support grass hOppers.
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, which they did.
About Havana the situation is even
worse. Hundreds of reconcentrados
from Los Fosas, the big reconcentra-
dos barracks in Havana, are too weak
to walk out of the town and fell in the
streets or died in the suburbs. where
flocks of vultures, ''Weyler's chickens"
as they are now termed in Havana,
have feasted on the remains.
In Matanzas this feature of the situa-
tion is equally distressing. The fisher
men who have been brought here are
mostly 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 foor is
reserved exclusively for the army. thus
forcing many people to enlist who
would not otherwise do so.
Finally, the fishermen say that GER
tain of the most desperate of the Span
iards threaten to burn Havana or blow
the city up in the event of the authori-
ties deciding to capitulate to the Am
erican forces