The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-06

III tWeHly-IOuf hours We fell that our work in Madruga was well completed
 at least for the present.
 To go into details concerning all the | places visited might make some tiresome | chapters. The work is always about the | same-dirty and mismanaged native asylums to be reconstructed and the l poor little jetsam of war gathered in from the streets, The charitable people have done as well as they could in the way of orphanages, often wonderfully we'll considering their own impoVer- ished condition; but they seem to have no idea of sanitation, and we usually lind state of things that has hurried more victims to the grave than hunger. The first move is always to take a suit able house, as far removed from the center of population as possible and with as much ground as can be ob- tained; to thoroughly scrub, clean, dis infect and Whitcwash the house, equip it with cot-beds, kitchen utensils and
 simple furniture Cnostly "home- made"
 from provision boxes), and to prepare
 the land for planting. Then the chill
 dren pass under the scrubbing brush,
 their cutaneous diseases are anointed
 and in most cases their hair has to be
 cut short, or shaved, to rid it of abound ing vermin Then, if ready-made
 clothes are at hand, they are dressed in clean garments; if not, they are put to bed until new dresses and trousers can
 be made. We bring along plenty of
 cotton, calico and denim in the piece,
 and invariably the ladies of the town as-
 sist with their needles and sewing-ma-
 chimes. Being thus clothed and in their
 right mind" in neat, Well-regulated
 home, with certainty of care, protection
 and enough to eat, the children are put
 to work. Books, slates and pencils are
 provided classes are organized and all
 are given at least the rudiments of edu-
 cation Meanwhile the older girls do
 most of the work of the house, cooking,
 scrubbing, sewing, etc. thus fitting
 them for usefulness when by and by
 they go out into the world to maintain
 themselves; and the boys attend to tha
 gardening. Already the first crops are
 growing. In few months they will be
 eating their own potatoes and vegeta-
 bles, and in two years time each insti-
 tuition ought to be almost self-support-
 ing. In every town and village yet wis.,
 ited, besides the efficient help of the
 men, the ladies thereof young and old,
 have organized themselves in clubs to
 assist the Red Cross work, assuming the
 care of the orphanage after we are gone
 and going every day in attachments,
 turn and turn about, to instruct and
 oversee the children. Thus the good
 cause becomes a sort of boomerang, re-
 bounding to the benefit of all engaged in
 it. by arousing the people from the le-
 thargy born of sorrow and despair.
 Thus on the same plan, we have es-
 tablished a dozen homes large and
 small, besides those before mentioned in these columns. At San Nicolas, seven
 leagues from Guines, on the Matanzas railway, we collected forty children and supplied them with all things needful. At San Antonio de las Vegas-where be- fore the war was a prosperous popula
 tion of six thousand, afterwards in- creased by the addition of three thou
 sand reconcentradoes, now reduced to nineteen hundred, all told-we opened an orphanage and staid long enough to see it in good working order. At Jico1a, in
 the same district, we asylumed fifty or phans, all under twelve years of age. At Santo Domingo we obtained house, rent free, with twelve acres of ground, which the owned plowed and planted
 we filled the house with homeless chill dren, saw the Ladies' club duly organ ized, and left them with an abundant supply of food and clothes At Beiucal, Well-built town of stone houses and the center of a judicial district, which formerly had a population of ten thou sand and now has less than half that number, we found the sanitary condi- | tion surprisingly good for Cuba. Its | old-time civil hospital has only twenty patients, and those all suffering from diseases incidental to impoverished | blood, from long g-continued hunger. Here some Catholic Sisters have collect- | ed most of the orphans into house and | are caring for them, besides maintain ing small school So well are these dear Sisters doing that we did not inter fere with them, beyond assisting with | needed food-supplies, beds and clothing. | We noticed that every orphan, without | exception was afflicted with the itch SO badly that it's fingers stuck out stiff like | stuffed gloves, and We added to our gift | a gallon or two of sulphur ointment, with directions for it's use. The public park of Bejuca has beautiful statue of Justice in the center, cut from native stone by an artist of the town. Cultiva- ton of the fields is becoming general in this section, the United States govern ment assisting the people to get upon their financial by furnishing rations; and when the good time comes that all the men find work to do in the fields or elsewhere, hard times will have passed away.
 Batabanao, in the same judicial dis trict is the southern port from which one embarks for the Isle of Pines. It is an exceedingly dirty and comfortless little burg, and so very unhealthy that we decided to remove it's orphans and distribute them among the various asy- lums rather than leave them in that death-trap of a place. Before the war the port had population of six thou sand, afterwards increased by several thousand reconcentrados; and now there are barely fifteen hundred. The neighboring village, San Pablo de Bain- ao, suffered as terribly, it's population from five thousand to nine hun dred, or thereabouts It should be re- that these figures gathered on the spot in a land where the census is seldom taken, are not given as abso- oI, .o4l hI1 T1n