The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-30

| m going to carry them, l said, re- sienedly, since you think ought to- "Gosh!" he exclaimed, "who do you | think wants that stuff? l was alluding to the cigars. Here the boys haven't | had the taste of tobacco in a week. l | guess there aint half dozen cigars in the camp outside of that box, and you d so leave them lying around before eve- rybody. It is putting human nature too high. Flesh and blood cant stand 1t. Leave anything you want, but you got to carry them. No, sir! I wouldn't take that cache for you nor nobody. You couldn't hire me to take respon- sibility like that. I'd mistrust myself, You have to hump them."
 So packed them into my satchel and slung it over my shoulder, and, leav- ing the money behind, marched away. l was glad I took them. If had been General Miles or the president himself, l could not have been more gladly well comed by the officers of my acquain- tance in the advance line. And when dinner time came and I discovered that my biscuits had been ruined by the thunderstorm, I traded one cigar and two cigarette papers and pinch of to- bacco for four hardtacl1 biscuits fried in bacon fat and good-sized go of warmed-up canned beef.
 Money, in fact, was of no value at all. | Gold bugs or silverites, or bimetallists, or whatever we all had been at home, we learned to look at the currency question from a new point of view. | Twenty dollar gold pieces and silver dollars were equally useless However hungry you might be, you could not get your teeth into them. And certainly you could buy nothing with them, for nobody had anything he was willing to sell. As to the relative values of the two metals, we'll silver was at the great disadvantage of taking up more room and of being heavier to carry. Paper money was distinctly better than either, because in case the commissariat utter ly broke down, or the lane to the base became quite impossible-well, there was a remote possibility of making a | sort of greasy stew out of greenbacks. But otherwise they had no immediate value except as so much paper for wrapping scraps of bacon in
 Even the Cubans, who would picq up almost anything and carry it to their huts, would not take money. Occasion ally Cuban would be discovered who had in his rag-bag a small store of country-made, rank, soft, black. oily cigars made up in palm-bark- covered bundles. They had an abominable taste and an odor like Siboney, but they were unmistakably tobacco, and there was great run on them. The Cuban, | l. +a ,o1I them for money except at prices which our old notions as to the value of the American currency would not allow us to entertain. But an cd cotton vest an | old pair of trousers-they could not be l too utterly worn out to be out of the Cuban fashion-they would buy enough | Cuban cigars to make one i'll for the rest of the campaign.
 | Here, however, were nearly twenty 1 thousand men, all of them needing many things, and some of them having more than they immediately required of | things which others needed, while they were themselves short of things which the others could supply. So at first a system of barter arose. One man would offer to exchange hard bread l and strip of the rub lightly part of l the box. The man with the matches, if l he were short of bread, would accept the offer or haggle for better terms. Of 1 course, there were no fixed ratios of | value. One moment hardtack might | be worth whole box of matches. Then up would come a commissariat pack mule train loaded up with biscuit | boxes, three days rations would be served out, and as three days rations could not possibly be induced to go in a knapsack, there would be a terrible slump in hardtock value.
 Then again in the morning there might be such an abundance of match | es that men would be seen to strike l one rather than walk forty yards to 1 get a light from campfire But a few hours later the mist would come l creeping down from the mountain tops, a black curtain of cloud would rever- vance, the thunderclaps would reverbe- rate along the valley, and down would come the rain. There was no hope of keeping anything dry for though you might shelter from the rain there was no possibility of sheltering even under | waterproof Sn66CS lIOIn tHe dll-D6TNdu- l ing washing-day dampness. In five l minutes you could squeeze water out of your canvas coat. Instantly the value of fire went up, for not safety match | would strike. Whether you rubbed lightly or whether you made savage sol dier strokes it made no difference. The soft head of the match did nothing but make a yellow smear on the side of the box. Then full box of safeties could not be exchanged for an unripe mango.
 But an hour afterward out would come the sun again; for time the air would be full of steam, then things would begin to dry out, and after lit- tie while, when from force of habit you | attempted to get a light by means of | the useless device of striking a match, | you found to your surprise that the match burst into flame. And the rela- | tive values of hardtack and safety matches underwent another sudden | change.
 This system, or rather unsystem, of casual bartering of such goods as a
 man happened to possess for such goods as he happened to be in need of | was all very well when two persons able to supply one anothers respective wants succeeded in coming together
 But they did not always find one an- other. There were men with hardtack looking in vain for men with matches