The Bellefontaine Republican. [volume] (Bellefontaine, Logan County, Ohio) 1855-1905, 1899-05-05
INTERESTING
THINGS In CUBA
Seen by a BellefOntaine
Boy.
MAGNIFICENT MAHOGANY AND
POLISHED EBONY.
Rascality and Rapacity
of Spanish Priests
and Officers.
AMERICAN MONEY ALL GOLD.
Annexation the Outcome Of
American Occupation.
INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS OF
ADJ. e. X. CAMPBELL. 49,
AMERICAN MONEY ALL GOLD.
Annexation the Outcome Q
American Occupation.
INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS OF
ADJ. e. X. CAMPBELL. 49,

and Aunt, at Rlpley.
He is in excellent health, and has
had most interesting time since his
muster out at Macon.
Since his return from Cuba, he has |
been visiting relatives in New York, |
Philadelphia and Washington
His experiences in Cuba wereof a
very pleasant and profitable character.
He travelled over about one third of the
island, some of his trips being to places
never before visited by Americans, and
he and his companion a Lieutenant of
Michigan regiment, were great Gu
riosities in those parts.
The Spaniards on the island all want
the American troops to remain, and
are in favor of annexation to the
United States, as they all believe that
they will be executed or murdered, if
they remain after the island is turned
over to the Cubans. Those who
have property are disposing of it.
and getting ready to leave with the
Americans. ~
The Spanish officials, more than the
Spanish Government, have been op-
pressors of the people, and have robbed
their own Government as we'll as the
people. Like the baron robbers of Old
England, they have exacted thousands
of dollars of plantation owners for pro-
lection, and in some cases these plan
tation owners have raised, equipped,
armed and paid troops for their own
protection, fighting Cubans and Span
iards alike, during the war.
When the Spanish troops were sent
back to Spain, after the war, great
numbers of them, it was reported,
died enroute, and were buried at sea,
and thousands of their friends awaited
the vessels arrival, and watched the
landing troops, in vain, for their boys
who were never to return. But these
boys had not been buried at sea, as re-
ported, but had died in Cuba, and had
been carried on the rolls by the ras-
cally officers who drew pay for them
and put it in their own pockets; and
when they were sent home, these dead
men had to be accounted for, and they
were reported as dying enroute home.
When Ned and his companion went
to sections where no Americans had
been seen, they were look upon as Mag
nificento Americana" so much larger
were they than any men the Cubans had
seen.
In this Country men look for "rest''
in the grave, and it is common here to
hear the expression every man owns
six feet of land, lin which he is buried,
but it is not so in Cuba. There, man
''rents" his six feet of land to be
buried in, and pays the church, and
when his friends cease to pay the
''rent," his remains are dug up and his
bones sent to the ''boneyard," where
they are piled with the bones OF
thousands who have gone before them:
and often the bones are dug up, and the
rent collected afterwards by the rapa-
cious priests, the friends thinking the
dead are still resting in their graves.
The soil in Cuba is excellent and the
resources of the island magnificent.
1t. Campbell was offered an option on
several thousand acres of mahogany
timber land, at $40 an acre; but titles
are too uncertain there for investment.
The church holds mortgages on
great proportion of the lands and has
preserved the titles to the rest, and
virtually controls the whole thing,
and only sequestration by the State
will ever settle titles and work justice
| to all.
The children wear no clothes but a
string of beads around the neck, till
they are eleven years old, and they
fatten on sugar cane like pigs, and the
veneering of sugar cane and molasses
that has run down over their dark
stomach from season to season, has drieds
and become polished till their well
rounded abdomens look like shining
ebony.
1t. Campbell thinks the Cubans will
ask for annexation to the United States
within a few years; that they will il
fact become ready for it before oul
troops are withdrawn. The differenc,
between American rule and Spanish
rule impresses them all favorably, ant
as the advantages of the sanitar,
measures we are introducing, tn
security of life and property, the mai
facilities, the advantages of our trade
the ightness of our taxes, the advanta
ges of our schools, and above all, ou
money, are realized they will surel
beget desire, already felt by many
for permanent American rule.
Our money is a wonder to them; an
it would do Bryan and his 16 to l crow
, a sight of good to go to Cuba and tax
lessons of these children in finance
They call silver 'plata'', and sa
Y "American money all gold''-'plat'
gold; paper, gold, and gold all same,