The age-herald., 1898-07-25
HOT ROAST FOR
 FLAGLER'S TOWN The Situation at Miami Camp
 is Very Alarming. THE SICK LIST IS GROWING While Able Men Clear Ground For a
 Second Brigade. MAKING NICE BUILDING LOTS For the "Oil King" and Patriots Only Hope to Retain Burying Place. PRESS IS SUBSIDIZED BY FLAGLER Certain Newspaper Men Live on Fat of the Land, While Press Censor Makes Free
 Use of His Blue Pencil Flag
 Ier's Desperate Efforts.
For the "Oil King" and Patriots Only Hope to Retain Burying Place.
PRESS IS SUBSIDIZED BY FLAGLER.
BY SEWELL HAGGARD

Bureau of The Age-Herald at Colonel Higdon's Headquarters, Camp First Ala bama Volunteers, Miami, Fla, July A.- Flagler's chicks, employed purely for their plumage and their attractiveness as an ad- yertisement, are still doing duty at that somewhat hackneyed old stand. The chick ems are dying off. The able men are clear ing off ground for second brigade-nice building lots for the 'oil king" and all the patriots hope to retain is decent burial ground for their comrades-victims to ty- phoid fever, superinduced by the contami- mated water.
 The "pull' that is being exerted to keep the troops here is not excelled by the trick cry that is being resorted to in the noted contest to post the handle of senator In front of the name of Marcus Aurelius Han na Correspondents of certain newspapers are fed at the Royal Palm, the Hotel La Grande, of this hamlet. These men live on the fat of the land, drink fine wines, and by the yard they spin false fabrications upholding the climate and the water. To handicap other correspondents, who desire to spread the truth in the hope that the troops will be moved from this pesthole be- fore 1t is too late, the press censor has or ders to cut off every bit of information con- cerning the sick, even to the daily increase These orders either come through Flagler's influence or else General Keller has &C., qured an interest in Florida real estate. It is manifestly unfair that the men who never inquire into the real conditions should be allowed to paint rosy-hued pie lures of ruddy checked men living in balmy cline and drinking crystal water, while those who do know the facts and want to give them are shut off from fur ther argument
 FLAGLER IN WASHINGTON.
 This is the influence exerted at this end. while the news has finally circulated through the everglades from Washington to this out-of- the-way place that King Flagler has made several trips to Wash ington, telling the officials there that 1t would ruin his town should the troops be removed
 This is done in the face of the undisputed fact that the entire fighting force of the regiment is down with burning levers and other diseases, mostly due to climatic causes. Night after night newspaper men swarm about the telegraph office, asking the privilege of simply sending the number
 
 censor-a cadaverous chap-shakes his head and wiln the blue pencil does the work. These men are the ones who daily visit ev- cry regiment only to see the sick fellows lying about in their quarters on the parch- ed sand because the hospital is too crowd ed to accommodate them. There is one case of varioloid in camp. The blue pencil went through the line in a press dispatch telling of this.
 You can't criticise the government man. agement of the camp" says the censor, as he draws the blue pencil through a line telling of a new case of disease.
 This is poor excuse. It is not the fault of those in charge of the camp. They. are doing everything to facilitate matters, but they do not make the grounds. The climate and pure water here is as much fable as the fountain of youth,'' for which Ponce de Leon searched fin vain. The volunteer army despairs to sec its number lessened by disease on American soil, although in a foreign cline they would cheerfully fall the victims of the enemy's bullets
 The mothers of the gallant boys of the First have not cause so far to become alarmed. Disease has not yet pervaded to any extent this regiment and it has the smallest sick list in the division. The off, cers are attributing this remarkably healthy condition to the extremely rigid examination the men had to undergo be- fore enlistment. It was the first regiment to go under the surgeons block in Mobile. and men were turned down by the score. Officers anxious to get their quota in early were chagrined then, but they are con graduating themselves now. The sick list
 
 [Continued on Second Page.]