The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-08-14
BACON FAT AND TOBACCO
THE TROOPS AT SANTIAGO FOUND
SILVER AND GOLD USELESS.
A System of Bartering Resulted i'm the
Adoption of Tobacco as Currency
lit Supplied All Wants.
les e Hands in London Mail.

| Charles +. Hands, in London Mail.
II believe il amt quite safe to leave
| things around loose like that the doctor
| said. shaking his head reproachfully.
THAT" said 1, with confident smile.
that's all safe enough; the boys wouldn't
| touch thing
| II know, 1 know" the doctor rejoned,
they're all right are the boys; I'd trust
| them with diamonds. But all the same. it
amt the safe thing, and, what's more it
| isn't the fair thing A soldiers only man.
| and you got no right to put temptation
ahead of him. You better leave them with
somebody or carry them along with YOU
/ gave a sigh of despair. The doctor was
obviously in the right. 1T was early in the
morning in camp, and / was making ready
| for the days expedition to the front So
| was unloading everything l could do with
out, under the strip of canvas stretched
| across four poles which two other men and
1 called a shelter because we were drowned
| out of it every afternoon.
! had piled up in a heap everything
could possibly shed. My coat 1 could well
do without; my shirt was an unnec-
| essary incumbrance when I was wear
ing an undervest; my field glasses-hang it,
1 could do without field glasses; my camera
| who was idiot enough to drag a camera
about?
I discarded them all and stood up in SOM
brero and trousers and light undershirt,
as light as could get. My water bottle
had to carry, and there was a little parcel
of hard biscuits to sling from my belt.
| Those were all.
Stay, there was an uncomfortably bulky
feeling in my pockets. In the hip pocket
there was a sodden and discolored note
book and soft leathern notecase. pulled
them out and looked at them. What did 1
want with great, hot, heavy baggage like
that dragging about in the tropical sunshine?
L could do well enough without the note
book. And as to the leather pocket case,
there was nothing at all in that but my
passport and papers and few hundred
dollars in greenbacks. They were of no
earthly use. So memorandum book and note
case went into the heap under the shelter.
Still felt heavy and bulky. l dived into
my side pockets. A knife-well 1 might
want that But little canvas tobacco bag
was using for gold purse-some twenty
dollar gold pieces, some Spanish gold and
some English soveregns-that was nothing
but so much dead weight In it went with
the heap under the shelter alongside the
other other things and the half-empty box of
the flask of medicinal rum.
No said the doctor again, 'it amt the
falr thing by The boys"
Very we'll then, doctor if Won think so"
SAID, ana bending reluctantly over the
neap, l picked up the case full of notes and
the little canvas. bag of gold and pulling a
Wry lace, began slowing them in my pock-
cts again.
IF, For mercy's sake broke in the doctor.
what's got you now?''
I'm going to carry them, l said resign
ed!y since you think ought to-"
GOSH he exclaimed. who do you think
that / w 10 bo oi-
CARS. Here's the boys haven't had the taste
OF tobacco in week. | guess there amt
half a dozen cigars in the camp outside of
that box, ard you'd go leave them lying
around before everybody. 1t is putting hui
man nature too high. Flesh and blood can't
got to carry them. No. sir | wouldn't take
that cache for you nor nobody. You couldn't
hire me to take a respc visibility like that.
Id mlstrust myself. You have to hump
them"
NO USE FOR MONEY.
SO packed them into my satchel and
slung it over my shoulder, and leaving the
money behind marched away. 1 was glad 1
took them. If had been General Miles or
the President himself l could not have been
more gladly welcomed by the officers of my
acquaintance in the advance line. And
when dinner time came and L discovered
that my biscuits had been ruined by the
thunderstorm I traded one cigar and two
four bareback 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, well, silver was at the great disad-
vantage of taking up more room and of be-
ing heaviest to carry. Paper money was
distinctly better tnan either. because in case
the commissariat utterly broke down, or the
lane to the base became quite impossible
well, there was remote possibility of max
backs But otherwise they had no immedi-
ate value except as so much paper for wrap
ping scraps Of bacon in.
Even the Cubans who would pick up al
most anything and carry it to their huts,
would not take money. Occasionally Gu
ban would be discovered who had in his
rag bag a small store of country-made,
rank soft, black, oily cigars, made up in
lm-bark-covered bundles. They had an
abomnable taste and an odOr like Slboney,
but they were Enthusiastically tobacco, and
there was d great run on them. The Gu
ban, however, absolutely declined to sell
them for money except at prices which our
old notions to the value of the American
currency would not allow US to entertain.
But an old cotton vest an cid pair of trou-
sers-they could not be 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 thou
sand men, all of them needing many things.
and some of them having more than they
Immediately required of things which 9TH
ers needed. while they wera themselves
short of things which the others could sup
ply. SO at first system Of bartering arose
One man would offer to exchange a hard
bread biscuit for half a dozen safety
matches and q strip of the rub lightly
part of the box. The with the match
es, if he were short of bread. would accept
the offer haggle for better terms. Of
course, there were fixed ratios of value
One moment bareback might be worth a
whole box of matches. Then up would
come a commisSariat pack-mule train load
ed up with biscuit boxes, three days ra-
tons would be served out and. as three
days rations could not possibly be induced
to go in a knapsack, there would be ter
rible slump in bareback values.
VALUES VARIED
Then again in the morning there might
be such an abundance of matches that men
would be seen to strike one rather than
walk forty yards to get a light from Camp
fire But a few hours later the mist would
come creeping down from the mountain
tops, black curtain of cloud would adj
vance, the thunderclaps would reverberate
along the valley, and down would come the
rain. There was no hope of keeping any