The Topeka state journal., 1899-09-18
Furman Sells the Best $3.50 Shoe.
POOR CUBA.
Drought and Crop Failure Added to
Her Many Ills.

New York, Sept 1S.-Wm. Willis
Howard, general manager of the Cuban
Industrial Relief fund, and who has
recently returned from Cuba, says:
Cuba is in a pitiful state. Instead
Of a rainy season, Cuba has had
drought. Non since 1874 has there been
such long continued dry weather dur
ing the summer. The result has been
disastrous. The United States weather
bureau reports that all small crops
have been ruined. Sugar cane has
been so damaged that the crop next
year will be less than the crop ground
this year. The most distressing fea-
ture of the drought is the destruction
OF the corn crop Even under 1aVor-
able circumstances the corn crop would
have been pitifully small, for it was
planted in driblets here and there on
the outskirts of the towns by poor peO-
pie who had no means of doing any bet
ter The weather bureau reports show
that the best of the corn crop in a few
favored localities will yield not more
than Is per cent.
On our relief farms we have better
corn than any that 1 have seen in Cuba,
due no doubt to the fact that we put
more labor on the growing crop than
any one else was able to do. We have
one Held that will give full crop, an
other that viii give three quarters of
q crop and third that will produce
from a third to a half.
Business in the cities is desperately
dull The hotels are empty, restaur-
ants are idle, and all small affairs are
1ifeless. Large business concerns are
scraping along as best they may, in the
hope that the future of the island may
be definitely settled. The gradual with
drawal of the American troops has ma
terially lessened the amount of money
IN circulation. The hectic flush of un-
real prosperity which many persons
1nistOOk for genuine prosperity has died
out There can be no return of pros
perity in Cuba until the farmers have
been helped back to their homes.
In the country the desOlatiOn wrought
by war and Weyler, still continues, al
most without abatement. The big
planters have been able to do only a
little toward the rehabilitation of their
properties. They have as yet been un-
able to obtain money with which to re-
sumo operations. Money will not be
forthcoming until the political condi-
tiOnS are settled.
The sugar and tobacco growers favor
annexation as a business measure. Free
trade with the United States would
serve just as we'll Cuban politicians
and office seekers want independence.
Any method Of giving them offices
would satisfy them. The bulk of peO-
pie want only a chance to earn a living
Anything other than Spanish rule will
suit them.
Any one who denounces the Cubans
as a dirty, lazy, worthless people is
guilty of SANDER. Any one who asserts
that the CubanS will not work, speaks
without knowledge of the subject. Gu
bans come to our relief farms in
swarms to beg for a days work. Not
one has yet come to beg for food. Our
relief farms are giving support wholly
OF in part to about $50 persons, of whom
about 500 are dependent women and
children We have workers in our field
who should be in the hospital. Some
of them have insisted on working until
they dropped in their tracks through
sheer fatigue.