Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1899-04-08
DESCRIPTION OF THE
FILIPINO CAPITAL
Surrounded by Low, Swampy Land,
Three-fourths Jungle and the
Rest Rice Fields.
CITY IS WITHOUT FoRTIrIcATIoNs
Were No Intrenchments or Earth
Works Even When j.. N. Ostran.
der, Member OF Aston Bat.
terry, Visited There.

New York, March 31.--John n. Os-
trander, of this city, who was a mem
Der Of the Astor battery, gives the fol-
lowing description of Malolos, the in
surgent capital of Luzon:
"One of the last things / did before
leaving Manila was to visit Malolos,
Aguinaldo's capital, near where the
hottest fighting of the Filipino war is
likely TO be. Nat Robbins and i got
leave of absence for one day on Deem
her IL last and hurried away after
reveille to catch the 6 a. ~. train from
Manila to Malolos. We wanted to in
terview A~guinaldo and photograph
him.
THE distance is thirty-nine kilo-
meters, or about twenty-five miles, but
n rickety train on the rickety old
road took five hours and a half 10
make the journey. There were fifteen
or twenty stops on the way, most of
them at wretched little stations near
small villages. At every station a
Filipino sentry opened each car and
examined it carefully to see that no
one was carrying arms or ammunition.
The country all the way between
Manila and Malolos is low, swanpy
land, three-fourths of it bamboo jun
gle and the rest of it rice fields. At
the time we passed over the road the
rice in these fields was just beginning
10 show green above the water. Ii is
poor country to campaign through.
AT Caloocan we saw a big, rusty,
old-fashioned Krupp gun. It's bore
looked big enough for a man to crawl
into. The gun was of an obsolete type,
dirty and neglected, but | suppose the
Filipinos used il to make some sort Of
q bluff. .
"The country around Malolos is of
the same swampy nature as hat we
travelled across. 1t is all bamboo jun
gle or rice fields, miserable stuff. The
water is full of malaria germs, and it
must be boiled before it is fit to use.
"We saw no Notifications around
Malolos, nor any signs of forts-not
even entertainments. There were only
earthworks around Caloocan, over
grown with brambles, etc, so | sup
pose they were thrown up by the
Spanish. At Malolos there was nothing
OF the sort last December, though the
Filipinos may have placed them since.
I'VE went to A%guinaldo's h~eadquar-
tiers after breakfast. He occupied a
big stone building two stories high,
about as long as a city block, and
about half a block deep. This house
was the meeting place of the Filipino
congress. Aguinaldo's guard and some
others of his soldiers occupied the
ground floor.
1.-THE building is reXt door TO a big
church and faces a public square. Here
f1lipinos were peddling rice and meat
and machetes-apparently the chief
staples of the country.
"Aguinaldo had at that time in Ma
lolos an army of 5000 men. They lived
chiefly i'm straw huts-'casas de nipas.'
] suppose Aguinaldo has a much
larger army than that now.
Before the entrance of the big stone
house a Filipino sentry was marching
mp and down with n Mauser rifle on his
shoulder.
"We saw Aguinaldo at an open win
dow in the second story of the build
ing talking with an elderly man. Rob
bins tried to get a snap shot of the die
tator. brt the Filipino soldiers thought
the camera was an Internal machine
ind made signs for us to go away.
"Aguinaldo is a bilious looking
young man. ! suppose he derives his
iaundiced complexion from the mix
ture of Chinese, Tagalo and Spanish
blood in his veins.
He has only one object in life-to
make money out of this war. He ac-
cepted n bribe of $500. 900 from the
Spanish and quit fighting. but he took
IT up again as soon as Dewey captured
Manila.
1--WE also saw Del Pillar with Agui-
naldo. He is the dictator's butcher,
his Weyler. General Del Pillar is about
Aguinaldo's age and size, He has a
narrow face with beady black eyes, "a
chin whitfield down to a point and the
general appearance of a rat.
robbins and | took a cramata, or
native carriage and drove
all through the town of Malolos and
the half dozen wretched suburbs
around it. The place has a population
Of 10000 or $4,000.
SIN the afternoon we saw Aguinal-
dos soldiers drilling. They are lean
little brown men with great powers
Of endurance-especially at running.
Many of them served in the Spanish
army, and as soon as Spain was beaten
they ran home with their rifles, ammu-
milton and uniforms.
1.-THE Filipino soldiers are dressed
as the Spaniards were, in uniforms of
blue s%eersucker and straw hats. These
men began drilling as o o as the
army quit fighting. They
have drilled faithfully every day. They
were out in companies and b%attalions,
and they spent most of the time prac-
ticing the manual of arms.
1--WE never saw them at skirmish
drill or doing anything in open order.
think they are full of enthusiasm,
because Aguinaldo makes them think
the Americans are worse than the
Spanish. They have plenty of Mauser
rifles, wherever they got them"
MISSOURI MURDERERS HANGED.