The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-19
CHARITY WORK IN SANTIAGO
"TRIP TO SAN LUIS WTTH lTTSS BAR
 TON AND AIDS.

An Appeal for Help for Ten Thousand Starving People in That PIacc-Meas- ures Taken for Their RelieE-A Lack OfTranspOrtation FaciItties-Friction Between Miles and shafter. Special Correspondence of the Jour
 nal and Courier)
 Santiago, Aug. 1S.-To-day I accom- panied Miss Barton and her aides to San Luis, neighboring village, whence had come an appeal for help for ten thousand starving people. It was a glorious morning, of warm sunshine and soft -breezes; and to escape for a few hours from the horrors and trage- dies of Santiago, into Gods green coun- try made us feel like prisoners respited from the chain-gang. San Luis is the terminus of the railway, forty miles in- land-or rather upland. The train was scheduled to leave at eight o'clock, which in Spanish American means that 'it is always eight until nine" It &C., tually did pull out about $40, which brought us into the midst of the daily down-pour we had hoped to avoid. In these regions, where the year is divi- ded into two seasons, the wet and the dry, sophisticated travellers calculate their movements so as usually to escape a wetting. Hereabouts in August and September it rains every day with the regularity of clock-work, beginning little after noon; not slow, constant drta9aes, like autumn rains in the north, but sudden, violent showers, washing the face of nature clean, con- verting the streets into rivers and sending hundred miniature Niagaras coursing down the hill-sides. On gene ral principles 1t is the pleasantest part of the year in southern Cuba, in agree able contrast to the parched verdure and clouds of white dust which make life a burden at other times. But there are exceptions. Just before we reached a long break in the railway, where some insurgent knights-errant of vagrant patriotism had burned the bridge, the windows of heaven were opened, the rains descended and the floods came. Umbrellas are of little use in tropical down-pour; the un- housed are sure of a wetting to the skin. There was no help for it but to pick up our petticoats and tramp a quarter of a mile, ankle deep in mud or knee deep in wet grass, to the waiting train at the other end of the break
 San Luis is a typical interior village of southern Cuba, it's narrow, stony streets, palm shaded plaza. antique churches, tiled roofs and tumble-down casas, all quaint as quaint can be; but the pleasing picture spoiled by abound ing filth, squalor and distress. Up- wards of ten thousand people are here lacking the barest necessaries of life, many of them absolutely without food. They thronged the streets and swarned the railway station in all their misery, rags and tatters- sight to make the heart ache .Hollow-eyed, emaciated wretches. with famine written on their faces, followed us silently from street to street, with that pathetic patience which distinguished this class of Cuban non -combatants
 Breakfast-so-c -calledseserved for the party in the 'sposada,'' which does duty as an inn, was an event of consequence in the annals of the village, particular IY to the landlord, who managed in the matter of charges to reimburse himself for many long days lack of custom. It does seem queer that these Cubans, whom we have come to help, instead of assisting our philanthropic efforts in behalf of their own people, in almost every case charge us the highest possi- ble price for everything we are com pelled to buy of them, making selfish and exorbitant profit of us at every turn, while taking our free gifts by the hundreds of tons.
 Breakfast over and the field thor ougfly canvassed Miss Barton engaged warehouse of M. Rosseau, an elegant French gentleman who resides in San Luis and does f1ourishing mercantile business in business times. To him, in the course of week, when the bridge is repaired, the Red Cross will send a liberal invoice of food and clothing for the needy. How the hungry ten thou sand will subsist in the meantime is as much mystery as how they have managed to sustain life during the past three years of famine. The fact remains that many thousands of them have failed in the effort and are now at rest in the over-crowded Campo on the hillside. By the way, why will Span- ish-A Americans invariably persist in es tablishing their grave-yards immedi- ately above the abodes of the living, knowing that tropic rains must wash the drainage down into their wells, to the augmentation of typhoid and other fevers? The Red Cross gift above mentioned will be large enough to SUD- ply the country back of San Luis for thirty miles or more, the people coming in for it on pack mules and M. Rosseau taking charge of it's distribution.
 Another good deed which Miss Bar- ton has lately accomplished is the ship ping by railway to Fermesa of supplies for the five hundred people who are there awaiting the opening of the Uru- quay Iron works. The superintendent and owner came down to Santiago and implored help in holding the men until he could get things started, when they will be able to take care of themselves. It is a grand work to furnish employ ment to 0 many, and we are glad to be able to assist. Otherwise the wait ing laborers would have to troop back to Santiago, to be fed with the rabble in the streets of that city; and it is far better to ease them along where they