Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1877 — THE CUBAN WAR. [ARTICLE]

THE CUBAN WAR.

What the Petty Insurrection Has Cost Spain in Blood and Treasure—A Terrible Record. There is a growing sentiment in Spain that there is something very wrong in the conduct of the war in Cuba, and Gen. Salamanca recently made a long and earnest speech in the national legislature against the further useless expenditure of the resources of the country and the lives of its soldiers in vain attempts to put down the insurrection. A New York Herald correspondent writes from Barcelona, Spain, on the subject: The Cuban insurrection has now lasted nine years. Nine years of civil war, and war attended with such barbarities never has the world known before. Yet such is the case with the “ petty insurrection” begun at Yara in 1868. The whole resources of the proud and haughty mother country, in men and money, the valor ot Her auiuiens imu me dhjlii 01 uer Generals, have not yet sufficed to suffocate it. When the bill of costs is footed up it will astonish the world. From official documents I learn that the number of soldiers sent out from Spain to Cuba between October, 1868, and Ist of June, 1876, was 179,875; sent out 187677, 25,000; total, 204,875 —exclusive of Generals, Chiefs and officers. In two months 15,000 more will embark.

The average of a soldier’s passage has been £3O. Thus these 204,875 men will have cost $6,146,250 in passage alone. Besides this there is the cost of those wh® have come home when their time has expired, and the cost to and fro of the Generals, Chiefs and officers and of employes. As to what has been spent in food, clothing and war munitions I have no statistics, and so will not venture to guess, nor at the pay of the army from the highest to the lowest rank. It must, however, have been fabulous. Apart from the treasure poured out, the blood reckoning is also appalling. I have before me the official list of bajas or casualties from 1868 to June 1, 1876: In Hospitals. Chiefs. Officers. Troops. Ot infirmities 61 , 457 33,877 Of wounds 2 42 718 Killed in the field 12 92 1,389 Inutiles ... 10,672 Total 75 591 46,656 JVbf in Hospitals. Of infirmities 14 163 5,728 Of wounds •. 10 170 3,377 Total 24 333 9,105 Total in hospital 75 691 46,656 Aggregate y 99 924 55,771 No official list is obtainable later than June 1, 1876. That there is something wrong is selfevident and is confirmed by the absolute ignorance in which the Spaniards in the Peninsula are kept as to the true state of affairs. Every one of the dozens of governments Spain has had since 1868 has fled from discussion, in the Cortes and the press, of the Cuban war. All alike have been cries of “peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Hundreds of times have I myself heard Prim, Serrano, Topete, Sagasta, Zorilla, Castellar, and the other men of the home revolution declare in the Cortes that the insurrection was “about to end,” was “ended,” etc.; oftentimes reading telegrams from Dulce, Caballero de Bodas, llalmaseda, Crespo, Jovellar, and others of the “Generals,” who, in rapid succession, have held supreme command in the island to that effect. The public, however, could not reconcile all these boastful assertions with the constant demands for more troops and more money, which ever accompanied them, always under the pretext of covering natural bajas and administering the “finishing stroke.” But a mistaken sense of national pride prevented much being spoken or written on the subject. From 1868 forward, he who ventured even to hint that Spain might be worsted in the struggle, or that she was not doing all that she could to maintain her supremacy, or that the war was far from its termination, or that it was prolonged through the blunders of her Generals and the cupidity of her army contractors, or of the clique in Madrid and Havana who fatten on its continuance, was instantly denounced as a filibuster. The mere application of the word sufficed to terrify everybody, and so everybody tried to prove his “patriotism” by holding his tongue on the disagreeable question. Governments, Cortes, and people alike buried their heads in the sand and became veritable ostriches in the great dangers existing beyond the Atlantic.

One of tlie celebrated Davenport Brothers, known in the wonderful “ box manifestations,” sometimes attributed to spirits, but more generally and truthfully to clever trickery, lately died in Sidney, in New South Wales. Henry H. Davenport is tho one that is dead. The brothers have traveled all over the globe together, having started in their business of giving “ demonstrations” in New York State over twenty years ago.