Judsonia weekly advance., 1918-09-04
CHAPTER XVII.
Rosa.

Look" Jacket clutched at OReiily and pointed q shaking finger. More beggars Christo! And those little children !' The boy tried to laugh, but his voice cracked nervously. Are they children, or gourds with legs under them?"
 OReilly looked, then turned hfi eyes away. He and Jacket had reache,b the heart of MatanZas and were facing the public square. the Plaza de la Lib ertad it was called. Matanzas ap- peared poor and jsqualid, depressingly wretched; its streets were foul and the Plaza de Ia Libertad-grim mock cry of name-was crowded with s throng such as it had never held In O'Reilly's time, throng of people who were, without exception, gaunt list less, ragged. There was no afternoon parade of finery, no laughter, no noise 2; the benches were full, but their occr-- pants were silent, too sick or too weak to move. Nor were there any romping children. There were. to be sure, vast numbers of undersZed figures in the square, but one needed to look twice to realize that they were not pygmies or wizened little old folks. It was nos strange that Jacket had compared them to gourds sith legs. for all were naked, and most of them had bodies swollen into the likeness of pods or calabashes. They looked peculiarly, grotesque with their spidery legs and thin faces
 OReiliy passed damp hand across his eyes "Just Heaven!" he breathed- "She-She'S one of these !" The reconcentrados overran Matan- gas in an unclean swarm; streets and plaZas were congested with them. for no attempt was made to confine them to their quarters. Morning brought them streaming down from the sub- urban slopes where they lived. evening sent them winding back; their days were spent in an aimless search for food. They snatched at crumbs and combed the gutters for cruSts. How they managed to exist, whence came the food that kept life In their miser- able bodies, was a mystery, even to the citizens of the city; no organized effort had been made to care for them and there was insufficient surplus food for half their number. Yet somehow they lived and fingered on.
 At the time of O'Reilly's arrival the sight presented by these innocent vic tins of war was appalling; it reused in him a dull red rage at the power which had wrought this crime and as the men who permitted it to continue. hn flected; she had set up more crosses than any other and yet beneath them she had butchered more people than all the nations of the earth combined. This monstrous coldly calculating eff fort to destroy the entire Cuban people seemed 10 him the blackest infamy Of all, and he wondered if 1t would be al lowed to succeed.
 Fortunately for the two friends Gen eral Betancourts generosity served to relieve them from any immediate dan ger of starvation. After making few purchases and eating with the utmost frugality, they began their search Later they stretched themselves out to sleep on the stones beneath the portales of the railroad station.
 They spent horrid, narrowing night for now the general distress was brought home to them more poignant ly than ever. At dawn they learned that these people were actually dying of neglect. The faint light betrayed the presence of new corpses lying. upon the station fagstones. From those still living groans, signs, sick mutterings rose until O'Reilly finally dragged his youthful companion out of the place.
 CTo BE CONTINUED,