Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1897 — DIRE DISTRESS IN CUBA. [ARTICLE]

DIRE DISTRESS IN CUBA.

Shocking' Conditions Observed in the Devastated Island. Deplorable ns the condition of the reeoncentrados may be, Spain’s first duty Is clearly to relieve the sufferings of her own troops, writes a correspondent of the New York Herald. To begin with, the Spanish soldiers have received no pay for many months, and consequently they are not able to buy anything on their own account in the small towns in which they are stationed. Then, too, the credit oC the troops has been in most instances exhausted, the shopkeepers refusing to deliver more goods unless they were paid what Is long due to them. If the captain general were to go to the country he would see ill soldiers lying by the wayside, he would find many forts that in reality are nothing more than hospitals, and hi many of the small towns he would experience difficulty in getting together a force of any size that would b» able to tackle an ordinary band of rebels. I am not in any way exaggerating when I write this, for I have seen these*” things myself. I took the train for Artemisa. early Sunday morning. At every smalt station that we passed I saw ill soldiers. Iu many insutanees the mark of death was plain!y~'visible in their faces. I visited a church that had been turned Into a jail. Half the guards were invalids,, and had the prisoners not be*»n weaker than the guards there was little to hinder their escape. One of the prisoners watched his chance and slipped me a note begging me for God’s sake to give him some money to buy clothing. Another prisoner, who had evidently been at one time a well-to-do planter, was allowed to roam about the church on a sort of parole.