Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-09-18

Correspondence of the Associated Press.
PONCE, Porto Rico, September IL
There aaes genersFy speaking, two
classes of people in Porto Rico.
About five per cent are educated,
thinking folk, who own land and are
the employers of the great 'laboring
class which constitutes 95 per cent Of
the population. The latter class, the
poems, has always been in state bord-
ering on absolute poverty. The poems
live in small huts along the rivers and
on the hillsides, or wherever there is
a bit of waste land and they live on
the little money they earn, subsistlng
upon the fruit, which grows abundantly
everywhere.
The great storm affected the two
classes very differently. The first class
has seen it's buildings wrecked, its ma
chinery ruined and its ripening crops
destroyed, but the great loss OF life
occurred in the lower class, and it
is there that starvation threatens. The
planters are unable to furnish work
to the poems and the fruit upon which
they had so much depended for food
is destroyed. Relief supplies are at
best only temporary, and difficulties
OF transportation have prevented the
distribution of relief except at the
most central points.
Under these conditions there is only
one thing for the poems to do. AS fast
as they exhaust the supply of green
fruit saved from the storm and use
up all the edible roots and tubers that
grow in the mountains, they pack up
their belongings and come into the
city. Here they overcrowd the houses
of the poor, sleep by hundreds in the
city hall, and other public buildings
and on door steps, in the parks. and
wherever they can find room.
AS a matter of fact, people are starry
ing to death almost every day in the
city Of Ponce, and while this state CT
affairs exists there is failure to afford
the commercial relief which is the only
true and lasting relief. Unless a per-
manent government is established, I'm
less the status of the island is deter
mined, unless the policy to be followed
here in the future IS soon outlined, ex-
listing conditions will be aggravated
and it will soon be necessary to feed
the whole population through relief
agents.
What Porto Rico wants, however, is
not charity, but rather the development
CT her commercial and agricultural in
terests; and while the present distribu-
ton of relief is necessary. that neces-
sity would soon disappear if those in
terests were properly cared for
Great difficulties are encountered ir
transporting the supplies to the inland
towns, largely due to the disappearance
CT the bridges.
More than this. when the Panther
arrived in the harbor of Ponce, the sea
was rough and there was a very heavy
rain, yet, for some reason, the work
of putting off the supplies was not post
poned; and, it is reliably stated. much
Of the cargo dropped into the bay in
stead of reaching the lighters. Then
again, what reached the lighters was
tossed upon the waves in the rain for
thirty-six hours. The tarpaulins only
protected the supplies and fifty per cent.
of what was finally landed was dam
aged by water. Tons of rice and oat-
meal have since been thorwn into the
ocean or given away to be fed to chick
ems or pigs.
By strange irony of fate, the boxes
of fancy straw hats and untrimmed
theatre bonnets came through safely.