The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-05-30

| with discarded army-cots, blue-grante
| table-service and stands Of cracker box
| es covered with calico; but the walls
were freshly washed, brick floors
| well scrubbed, cots covered with clean
| sheets, and the store-room stocked with
rice, beans, bacon, bareback, coffee and
condensed milk-enough for many long
day.
Before the war San Felipe had a pop
ulation of about five thousand, and now
has less than two thousand. The out
skirts are fringed with long streets of
reconcentrado huts. perpetual menace
to the health of the community with
their Astounding filth, itch, scurvy,
smallpox and vermin Of every sort. In
1896 the death-rate Of the town was one
hundred; in '97 something over one
thousand. Its pink-painted church.
with three rusty bells in It's little tower,
is now more picturesque than ever, since
the Spaniards turned 1t into a fort and
punched holes for their guns, breast
high, all around the walls. The interior
| is, of course, total wreck with nothing
left to indicate that 1t ever was a sacred
edifice, except the empty nitches where
Saints once stood and gilded sounding
| board, shaped like the Spanish crown,
suspended above a tottering pulpit.
Our next objective point was San An
tonic de Banos, seven miles inland and
only to be reached on horseback.
Horses were easily found-lean, spirit
less animals-but only two slde-saddles
to distribute among five ladies, and
both of those with the horn on the
wrong side, according to the left-legged
Cuban fashion, However, ''needs
must" and just as the clocks proclaimed
the hour of noon we clattered out of San
Felipe-a cavalcade odd enough to set
the dogs a-barking. Miss Barton riding
ahead as gracefully as a girl in her
teens, and all the ladies under coarse
straw hats fringed around the edges,
such as Cuban negro soldiers wear, has
tily bought at the village store to shield
our faces from the broiling sun and tied
down under the chin a la Salvation
Army
San Antonio village is the center of
judicial district of the same name. Be
fore the war 1t had a population of eight
thousand, or Whereabouts, and now has
about one-fourth of that number, the
rest having died of hunger; and of the
pitiful remnant, seven hundred are said
to be actually starving. There is a Hos
pital Civil, entirely without funds or
supplies. Five thousand rations are
needed at once together with a quanti-
ty of such simple medicines os quinne,
pills of opium and camphor and COM
pound iron. Should these arrive and be
distributed tomorrow, next week the
town will be no better off than to-day.
To help the San Antonians a little will
only prolong their misery, unless we
keep 1t up for months to come and
meanwhile supply the men with work SO
that In trne they may become self-sup-
porting At present there Is no work |
and the municipality can do absolutely
nothing for its poor. Enquire about the
revenues of hundreds Of these villages,
and the invariable answer is: I'VE |
have no revenues. Taxes have always |
been collected by the Banco Espanol, !
and we have never had any hand or
voice in the matter except to pay the I
taxes or lose our ALL" The Spanish |
bank had agents who relgiously collect
ed the taxes, whatever the necessities of
the people, but 1t put no money into cir
culation. The Spanish bodegeros, or
loaned money at eighteen to twenty-five
per cent; and some Of them are now in
possession of many caballerias of land,
ca caballeria is thirty-three and a third
acres) on which they never advanced
dollar.
They supplied families with tasajo--
jerked beef-and other necessaries
through the dark days Of reconcentra-
dom--enough to keep the souls and
bodies Of their victims together at
enormous prices. The result Is that the
families mostly survived by the skin of
the teeth, so to say, but are left home
less and without resource. Could a
former land owner rent the farm that
once was his, he would need yoke of
oxen and implements with which to till
it, not to mention seeds, a cow, some
poultry, ETC., and a little money with
which to build a shack for his family In
place of the house which the Spaniards
burned. Even now, bad as the situa-
ton is, il each municipality were grant
ed its right in local revenues and such
revenues applied to the necessities of the
people, there might be a CLEAN of light
ahead.
At the edge of San Antonio we board
ed a queer little square box of a car, and
were drawn by three mules tandem over
an exceedingly narrow-gauge track to
The nearest railway station. The route
lay over a wild, rough country, of
huts and stately palms,
but few signs of cultivation. Here and ,
there little tobacco is growing and an
occasional patch Of boniatar; but for the /,
most part the sweet, warm breeze stirs
only coarse grass growing in punches, :
md toni guinas and meadow-larks pipe
n the sunshine above land of desola-
ion. One stirring event befell us. Gen
sral Celestino Hernandez, alcaldl Of the
adjacent village of San Jose and theI
great man Of the vicinage, had been
waiting two days with his troop of cav
Try to give Miss Barton what is known
Is 1.-THE Cuban welcome" AS our little
ar bumped along the open country sud-
lenly a thousand mounted soldiers ap-
charging down upon us with
Wild shouts and waving machetes. For
IN instant it recalled the days Of war !
md thrilled the stoutest heart with ter |
or. Coming nearer, the cavalry sepa-
ated into two long lines, surrounding
ur car, and with DOTTED hats and pre-
ented arms, stood like statues while
General Hernandez and Miss Barton ex-