The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-16
THE COLOMBIAN ARMY.
LARGELY INDIAN BOYS RE
 CRUITED
In n Highly streauou. mannsr-some
 Ineidents.

In n Highly Strenuous Manner-soms
 Incidents.
 There are no warriors in the Colom- bian Army" says Thomas s. Alexan- der, in ,'sThe Worlds Work" more terrible than the machetatos, or ma chetemen, of the Cauca, in spite of the fact that the troops are raised and trained in the following way: An h. dian boy of twelve or fourteen years is out in the field cutting sugar cane. All os a sudden he sees three or four soldiers. He becomes scared and runs away. They shoot at him. If he stops without being shot he is in luck. Then they catch him, tie rope to several other luckless lads caught in the same way and march the batch to the bar racks at the nearest town.
 ''The boy, half negro and half Indian, has probably never been in a town be- fore and never handled a gun. He sleeps that night at the barracks. Next morning. at 4 o'clock, he is awakened by heavy kick and given a rife which he can hardly carry, not to say shoot. It is usually taller than himself, for he is generally a weak, undersized, nar- now chested brat. He is thrust into the awkward squad and marches to the square for his first drill. The ser geant, burly negro, enforces his com mands by many stripes of rawhide six feet long, until the boy is beaten into absolute stupidity. At Il o'clock he goes to his breakfast-if he can get any. Usually he cannot, unless he steals. In the afternoon an officer comes along teaches him how to load and unload his rifle, and incidently thrashes him again with the rawhide.
 That night the boy, who does not even know how to handle his rife, is rut on the streets of the town at 9 o'clock to do sentry duty. There is a boy at every street corner, with orders to fire on anybody who does not answer his challenge in the proper form. He is supposed to hail passerby three times before he shoots, but as a matter of fact he is so afraid of his rife that his fingers trefnble on the trigger and it goes off before he challenges. Time and again bullets have whistled past me at night in the streets of Cali before I even saw the poor, little forlorn sentry at the corner. He usually fires at ev- erything he sees moving dogs, mules, cattle and cats, as well as men.
 Although the Colombians are ex- tremely brave, their generals care nothing for the lives of their men, as the following incident will show: At the battle of Palo Negro, when General Uribe- Uribe the Liberal leader, was beaten back in his efforts to reach Be- gota, over seven thousand men were left dead upon the field and many terri ble atrocities were enacted. One of the worst was related to me by a govern rnent officer, General Triana, after he returned from the fight. It was a glorious victory and horrible affair, and we whipped the Liberals properly, he told me. But one thing happened which has disgusted me with the whole war I never want to see any fighting again, There was strong force of Liberals ambushed in thick brushwood on the side of a hill. One of our generals was ordered to clear them out, but he could not locate their exact position, and he knew that to advance blindly upon them would mean the loss of a great many of his men. What do you think he did? Among his troops there were about forty little boys from ten to fourteen years old. He picked them out and told them to march across the exposed ground to- Il, 11a roo death before, and were proud to march ahead of the rest. Before they had gone far thousands of riflemen opened fire on them. and every one of the forty was killed. Then, the enemy general easily drove them away. A pit was dug after the battle and the corpses of the forty boys were all thrown into it together
 q have witnessed barbarities which cannot be described here-women and children tortured to death in a man. ner that made the stories of Armenian and Macedonian naassacres seem mild. It is a common thing for 8 boy of twelve or fourteen to be thrashed to death with cowhide whips for deserting from the army-that is to say, running back home after he had been forcibly enlisted. It is generally common for a mere child to be hung up by the thumbs until he dies, because he will not-or cannot-say where his father is hidden. Women have been crucified because they have refused to betray their hus- bands, and others have been treated infinitely worse. I can give chapter and verse for dozens of atrocities which prove exclusively that Colombia has no title to be dealt with by the United States or any other power as a civilized nation. Here is one typical story:
 "A dentist named Theophile Borraro came to me one day and asked if wanted to buy some gold. I said yes, and he unwrapped a bundle and showed me about pound of gold teeth filings. some of which had fragments of teeth still sticking to them. Where did you get them?' I asked in mortified amaze ment. I got them in the fight at San