Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1898 — NOTES OF THE DISASTER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NOTES OF THE DISASTER.

Brief Bits of Important News Bearing on the Horror in Havana Harbor. The wreck has sunk several feet already in the soft mud. The Spanish Government will stake all on the claim that the disaster was accidental. The main portion of the wreck, as seen from above and noted from, below, was blown to starboard. A large quantity of clothing has been

taken from the wreck and will be given to the reconcentrados. The Spanish anti-American feeling in Havana is growing and Americans are insulted openly on the streets. The most intense anxiety is shown by the Spanish officials in Havana, who are in constant communication with Madrid. Divers found the bodies of twenty men in hammocks, where they had been instantly killed by the shock of the explosion. Admiral Sieard issued orders forbidding any United States official or sailor to talk of the Maine disaster with outsiders under severe penalty. Significance is attached to the fact that the wrecked ship was the first foreign war vessel to be anchored to that particular buoy since the Cuban trouble began. Sharks have given little trouble, but the vultures loft scarcely anything but the skeletons of three men, who were entangled in debris very near the- surface of the water. A Spanish lieutenant openly boasted that if any other United States warship arrived she would l>e served the same way. Ilis brothet officers applauded him uproariously. One thing seems certain, if the Maine was blown up by nn outside agency, the agent was a mine, and not a torpedo, as no torpedo known could have produced such tremendous results. The number of missing is eighty-five or eighty-six, anil five have died in the hospital. Of the missing many doubtless wore blown to atoms, no portions of their bodies being recoverable. Cubans claim that there nre mine galleries under the harbor leading from subterranean passages known to have existed'for years between Fort Cabanas and Morro Castle and Havana. Havana newspapers are not permitted to pnbiish any news concerning what is going on In Washington, and American papers hnve been called for by the censor, who seizes all printing any disturbing newa. , * ,«

captain W. T. SAMPSON. President of the Naval Board of Inquiry.