The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-05-30
TO URING CUBA WITH CLARA BAR
TON.

TON.
Towns and cities Turn Out En- Mass,
to Welcome the Red CrOsse--Condi.
tiOns That Exist To-day in the Int.
rior-Over One Hundred and Fifty
Thousand Homeless Orphans ia III.
Island and Many Thousands of Des-
tutute widows.
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
| and Courier)
Madruga, Central Cuba, May 1S.--It
has sometimes happened that reports OF
greater distress than really existed at
the points indicated have come to the
Red Cross managers, and supplies sent
out in response to those appeals which
| were needed much worse elsewhere: and
again communities of starving people
have not been heard from at all, until a
pitiful remnant was accidentally dis
covered. Besides, the United States
army is issuing rations in many Cuban
cities, and it is not our intention to du-
| picate that good work. Therefore Miss
| Barton decided to make tour of the
island, to see for herself what had been
and should be done in order to make the
best possible use of her diminishing
stores. Several Of her staff, including
your correspondent, accompanied her,
and also a number OF trained nurses,
who are to be left, one by one, at points
| where their services are required.
| We left our new headquarters in the
Tulipan suburb of Havana at five
O'Clock on a mid May morning, in one Of
the beautiful yellow topped ambulances
recently presented by Auxiliary society
No. l. of Philadelphia, and were driven
to the Cienga station, where we took
train for San Felipe. The country was
still wrapped in its vapory vestido de
noche (night- clothes), and houses and
palm trees sprang out of the mist at our
approach. For time the track follows
closely that magnificent highway which
connects the capital with Gunes, one Of
the four good roads in Havana province,
Spanish block houses are thick upon 1t,
set four or five yards apart-some small,
round and red, just large enough for
solitary sentinel; and others square,
squat and yellow, capable of sheltering
a dozen soldiers and others more pre-
tentious forts, two-storied tile-roofed
and watch lowered now alike de-
serted and falling into picturesque ruin.
Early as 1t was men were afield plow-
ing, hoeing and planting-not by any
means because these farmers are more
industrious than those of the north, or
will get in more hours of labor between
the twilight which begins and ends each
day! Cuban custom, born of a torrid
climate, commences work at the first
peep of dawn and takes long siesta
through the noontide hours. Those who
are blowing at five o'clock in the morn
ing will go to breakfast at ten or eleven
as will also the carpenters, masons,
painters and other artisans; and from
that hour until p, m. or later all ma
tive workmen will be absent from the
field of action.
BY the way, 1t has always been be-
leved in Cuba that only oxen can pillow
the land. which during the dry season
became hard as a macadamized road,
and that good stout yoke can pillow no
more than half an acre in two and
half days. An American gentleman who
is doing some experimental farming in
Guines valley has demonstrated the un-
truth of the proposition to the unbound
ed astonishment Of the natives. Hap
PLY his farm lies in the one irrigated
section Of the island, or perhaps he
could not have done it. He softened the
hard baked soil by turning the water on
couple of days; and then with pair
of army mules and an American steel
plow, turned up an acre of ground in one
day to the depth of twelve inches!
Hitherto, for four hundred years, only
the surface of Cuba has been scratched
with wooden plows, not more than four
inches deep leaving all below in virgin
richness; and as the inefficient old time
methods have yielded 50 well, our Amer
lean friend naturally expects some Won
derfu crops from his more thorough |
Ever since reconstruction San Felipe
station has been so thronged with chron- /
ic mendicants, whose rags and sores and |
swollen feet We're stock-n-trade, that
we dreaded to run the gauntlet of their
To-day-wonder of Won
ders.-there is not beggar in San Fee
lipe: for the good DR.. Hubbell went
there a week ago with three Red Cross
women and gathered them all into a
home. Arrived at the little station
about s a. M, we found ourselves be-
|
the entire population, men,
women and children, headed by the
mayor, the judge. the doctor, the priest
and delegation Of ladies bringing
flowers to honor Miss Barton; and thus
escorted, after the introductions had
been made and speeches delivered, we
in triumphal procession
through the stony streets of the poor
little town, In the doctors house-the
best in San Felipe-coffee was served,
breakfast being yet four hours ahead.
according to local custom. Then we
visited the brand new asylum, with the
oopulace still at our heels. What a
change one week of comparative comfort
lad wrought in the erstwhile beggars,
whose faces had become so unpleasant
Y familiar in our frequent trips through
he place! Clean clothes, full stomachs
md assured protection had made them
altogether different creatures. True, /