wit
Bellefonte, Pa.,. June 4, 1897.
EE——
THE DUEL.
The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat ; >
*Twas half past twelve, and what do you think?
Neither of them had slept a wink!
And the old Dutch clock and Chinese plate
Seemed to’know as sure as fate
There was going to be an awful spat.
(I wasn't there—I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate.)
The gingham dog went ‘“‘bow-wow-wow !”
And the calico cet replied ‘“‘me-ow !?
And the air was streaked for an hour or so
HH fragments of gingham and calico.
While the old Dutch clock in the chimney
place
Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
(Now, mind, I'm simply telling you
What the old Dutch clock declares is true.)
The Chinese plate looked very blue
And wailed : “Oh, dear! What shall we do ?”
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that
And utilized every tooth and claw
In the awfulest way you ever saw—
And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew !
Don’t think that I exaggerate—
I got my news from the Chinese plate.)
Next morning where the two had sat
They found no trace of the dog or cat!
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away ;
But the truth about that cat and pup
Is that they ate each other up—
Now, what do you really think of that?
(The old Dutch clock, it told me so,
And that is how I came to know.)
—Eugene Field.
The section foreman’s boy, red of hair
and freckled of face, offered to show him
the way to the church, but he declined the
proffered courtesy, preferring to walk up
the railroad track until he should get tired
of the jaunt, when he would stop at a cat-
tle guard and rest, and then return in time
for dinner. Church going had been an un-
known quantity with him in the city,
where there were great cathedrals in half a
dozen different paits of the town, and he
hardly saw the occasion for departing from
custom simply because his exilein the lit-
tle country town was so uninterestingly
eventless. He started with a swinging,
athletic club stride up the line of gravel,
therefore, and the section foreman's boy,
palpably starchy and awkward in his Sun=
day clothes, went hurrying down the street
from the station, his red hair crimsonly
signaling his approach to the little frame
church while he was yet agreat distance
away.
Kennedy was.th> new telegraph operator.
He was an aspiring fellow and an intelli-
gent one, and some day he hoped to-bea
trick dispatcher, and possibly, after a reas-
onable lapse of time, the superintendent
of telegraph. He spent the long and lone-
some nights in reading on social economies,
and he knew more about the history of
strange and peculiar things associated with
government than almost anybody whose
name or fame is now suggested to mind.
He was the chief telegrapher of his division
of the telegraphers’ labor union, which
met in the city 30 miles away, and he was
the man who made the best speeches on
Tuesday nights, when lodge proceedings
had got as far along as the ‘‘good of the<
order.”” The others of the division thought
highly of him, and usually they sent him
as their lodge delegate to the sessions of
the international convention. He could
argue splendidly and he said he was an
agnostic. ; \
As he walked up the track this Sunday
morning the Sabbath feeling seemed to
rise up as though to offend against his rea-
soning and reasonable agnosticism. Across
the fields came the mellowness of a church
bell, and seeming far, far, far away, its
sound was the sweeter for the distance.
Over to the right a farmer’s wagon was
creeping along the section line road as the
sleek brown horses dragged the family to-
ward the place of worship in the town.
Around the curve ahead of him there rose
a quiet rumbling, and, looking to see what
unexpected train was bearing down upon
him, he received the hail of Michael Doolan,
foreman of Section 43, several miles up the
parallel line of rails, who, with his men
and their women and children, was whir-
ring along in the direction of the little
parish church toward which the red-head-
‘ed boy had sped several minutes before.
The men were on a hand car, to which a
little flat had heen attached, and this flat
accommodated the women and children.
“I suppose it’s all right for them,”
Kennedy murmured, as the twin cars dis-
appeared nd the other bend of the
curve, ‘‘but that isn’t for me. Religion is
a good enough thing—an indispensable
thing, indeed, but it hasn’t got around to
me yet, and it never will. It's a good,
handy thing to have for” the purpose of
swearing people in courts and impressing
ignorant persons whose characters requige
some sort of ballast of mysticism, not only
for their own comfort, but for the safety of
the public. Such people, without a weight
or anchorage of some kind, would rattle
arcund annoyingly and even harmfully to
others.” I wish I could believe as they do.
Doubtless it is a comforting thing to be as
they are, ‘but—"’
And he closed his statement of opinion
by picking up a stone and throwing if-atg,
rabbit.
~He -walked to the cattle-guard, and,
resting, returned, and found he had vastly
miscalculated distance and time, and that
it was still very early in the day. He
looked -about and saw the hand car on a
siding, and it suggested something to him.
Kennedy prided himself on being a liberal
sort of person, and the thought came to
him that it would be a fair and reasonable
thing for him to drop into the little church,
just to show that he had really no feeling
against religion. He found the white-
painted structure with the cross over its
queer little cupola, and, entering, took the
rearmost seat. The services were nearly
closing. He looked forward, over the
heads of half a hundred devout worshipers,
at the priest in vestments, which—although
Kennedy did not know it—he had brought
at great labor from the city, for the parish
was too poor to support a resident pastor.
He noted that the worshipers seemed to
consider every movement of the bezowned
man as to some especial import, and genu-
flected and crossed themselves and mur-
mured unintelligible utterances, which he
took for prayers. It was very interesting,
and in his heart he wished that reason
might show him how to be as happily sati--
fied with the priest’s teachings as were
these. )
“If a miracle could. be enacted in those
old days, why should not one he performed
now ?”? he inquired inwardly. ‘‘Oh,- no.
It is all opposed to sense and science.
Faith ?2—for he had arrived in time to
hear enough of the sermon to know that |
the priest had "discoursed on faith—*‘yes,
by a miracle I could have faith, but—’"
His seli-communion was interrupted by
the sound of a silvery voice coming from
the gallery above his head.
“O salutaris I’ the hail rose pure and
sweet—such a voice as the agnostic had
never before heard. ‘‘O salutaris !”’ and
the church was filled with the wonder of a
music which csused him to think that an
angel sung, quite ignoring the fact that ac-
cording to his philosophy no such thing as
an angel could exist. He listened as one
entranced, and he left the church with his
very soul brimming with the joy of that
heavenly soprano.
The next Sunday he walked up the
track again, but only a little way. The
section foreman’s boy had invited him as
before to accompany him, but Kennedy
hesitated, and, hesitating, was not lost.
Now. however, as he again looked up at
the cheery hail of the happy passengers of
the hgnd car, he hesitated again, and.this
hesitafypn sent him churchward. He took
his forfer seat in the rear, under the odd
little choir loft, and to-day a new priest
talked, and, strangely enough, of the
‘Miracle of Faith.”” As though answering
a question of Kennedy’s the clergyman
said : = “Who are the believers? The
greatest of all the great in learning, state-
craft and material advancement. Presi-
dents, prime ministers, men of mighty
mind accept the divinity of Christ—and if
these men, wise enough to be great, and
great enough to be honest, accept by faith,
why should you or I cry out for a miracle
to be enacted for our special behoof. There
are many millions of people in the world—"’
Kennedy could have told him how
many.
*‘—and what right has one man to ask
God to miraculously perform for him so
that he might be badgered and forced re-
luctantly into accepting what worthier,
more learned men and men of infinitely
greater responsibility and vaster tempta-
tion gladly and gratefully take as a boon ?”’
“This,”” thought Kennedy, ‘‘sounds
reasonable, but I cannot blindly accept
their belief on unsupported, unwitnessed
sentiment.” And as he thought upon it
the voice of the soprano rose in glprification.
It was what he had waited for.” It filled
him with great happiness. The undeserved
miracle was beginning of performance.
Every Sunday after this he came in after
the others and took his back seat. Her
voice had sung him almost into the ac-
ceptance toward which the reasoning of
the priest was powerless to persuade. He
seemed to partake of the feeling of the
singer. He exulted with her in the Latin
praise of the Redeemer. He learned the
| words, and they rose almost to his lips as
shesung. Whata woman she must be !
What a heart of purity to well up in such
witness of the might of Christian love and
Christian mercy ! He had never scen her,
for he was an agnostic, and he could not
yield the stubborness of his unbelief to ask
about her or to even wait in the church to
watch her. He came into church late and
he left early» He was an agnostic, and
she—
. But was he?
One day after the services were conclud-
ed he advauced past the half hundred hum-
ble worshipers, and greeting the priest,
said : ‘Father, I want to come into the
church.” His heart leaped with that ac-
knowledgment, and the little edifice seem-
ed filled with the glory of the Shepherd of
the lost sheep. Suddenly, from the organ
loft, which now for the first time was visi-
ble to his eyes, came the swelling sound of
that heaven!y voice in some song of praise.
He looked for the singer. It was the
section foreman’s boy.
And this was his miracle.—Chicago
Record. :
Engaged Him.
Stranger—* ‘Don’t you want to take on a
man ?”’
Coal Dealer—‘ ‘Well, I want a weigher.
Have you any references ?”’
Stranger—* ‘Sorry to say I haven’t ; but
it is not easy fora man who has been in
my business to obtain references.’’
Coal Dealer—'‘What business have you
been in ?’’
Stranger—*‘I’l1 be honest with you. I've
been a pugilist, but I retired from the busi-
ness. I was champion of the light weights.’?
Coal Dealer—‘‘Champion of the light-
weights! You're the very man I want.
Come in.”’
Use For Fruit Stones.
In France the various kind of fruit
stones, cherry, peach, plumb, apricot, Ect.,
are collected, washed, boiled, sun-dried
and put into chintz or printed linen bags.
Thoroughly heated in the oven, they are
admirable applications for toothache or
earache, rheumatic pains or cold feet, as
the stones retain the heat for a long time,
besides giving an agreeable scent.
Edict Against Sunday Labor.
«
It is announced that John D. Rocke-
feller has issued an edict against Sun-
day labor by the men employed on his
ore docks on the upper and lower
lakes. While the men are expected
to respond to calls to load or unload ves-
sels at any hour of the day or night, they
will not be asked to work bewteen mid-
night Saturday and midnight Sunday.
——The Huntingdon News says of a local
celebrity : John Noble, the veteran pump-
maker, of Cassville, this county, is now
past 70% ears of age, and still hearty and
able to work at his trade. Since 1848 he
has put in 1207 pumps and bored 320 jobs
of pipe. One of his pipe jobs was 4000
feet long. The most of his work has been
done in Huntingdon, Blair, Bedford and
Fulton counties. Since 1847 Mr. Noble
has kept a diary in which he daily records
his doings.
——He was seven years old and was sit-
ting on the porch when the census-taker
came around. It was ‘‘Jack’s” first ex-
perience in this line, and he willingly gave
the names of the several members of the
household, winding up with that of Bridg-
McCarthy. ‘‘Bridget McCarthy,’ repeated
the census taker; ‘is she a domestic ?”’
It was a new word for Jack, but he was
equal to the occasion. ‘‘No, sir,’’ he said,
‘she’s from. Ireland—Irish, and not do-
mestic.—7imes.”’ :
——The Punxsutawney Spirit makes the
following allusion : There are a number of
young men about this town who seem to
have no other object in life than to put on
good clothes and stand around, ride bicy-
cles and eat. Go to work boys. Spade
garden. Do something. Anything is a
thousand times more respectable than
useless indolence. Whatever you do, don’t
loaf around the streets and smoke cigar-
etts. This is abominable in the sight of
man and beast.
STARVATION IN CURA.
— The policy which is now in force, of driv-
ing the peaceable Cubans of the four west-
ern provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana,
‘Matanzas, and Santa Clara into certain
specified stations of concentration, was con-
ceived by General Weyler early last fall.
Permission having been duly obtained from
the home authorities of Madrid in October
last, he published the dando, or proclama-
tion, under which the various commanders
of military districts were instructed to give
the guajaros a period of eight days in which
to leave their. homes and to take them-
selves to the stations designated. The
soldiers then burnt down their homes, con-
fiscated their horses and cattle, and took
all that belonged to them that was worth
the taking. They then escorted these
trembling herds of pacificos, or non-com-
batants, and their families to the low-lying,
swampy, and malarial stations which had
been selected as suitable places for them
to dwell in. These stations are one and all
well within the. Spanish lines, and sur-
rounded by little forts. When you re-
member that execution of this simply bar-
barous proclamation was intrusted almost
exclusively to those convict gangs who are
known as guerillas, or irregular troops,
you can form a fair estimate of how often
these military evictions and the plunder of
private property gave rise to bloodshed
and cold-blooded murder. Indeed, mur-
der and bloodshed were of frequent occur-
rence in every district of these four pro-
vineces, and not a few, fearing the end of a
policy which began in this way, preferred
to incur the risk of endeavoring to escape
and of disobeying the proclamation, and
are now living in caves and concealed
hovels. These refugees, should they be
discovered by the Spanish columns, would
be and often are shot down in cold blood.
General Weyler’s proclamation of October
21st, 1896, authorizes such a course, and
disobedience would be punishable by
death. It was with the purpose of starv-
ing out these people, as well as the armed
insurgents, that the orders were given at
the Palace to the commanders of the re-
spective military‘ districts to burn and
ravage the country, to cut down every
green thing that grows, and to dig up
every root that might help to sustain
human life.
With the exception of the few towns and
villages which are held and occupied by
the Spanish troops and are within: the
military lines which they still maintain,
there has not heen left standing a single
home, however modest and lowly, from
the Jucaro-Moron Trocha to Cape San
Antonia. By the 1st of December last,
400,000 of these non-combatants and peace-
loving peasants, including their aged and
infirm parents, their wives, and their chil-
dren, were ‘‘concentrated’’ in these sta-
tions, which, whether they were chosen
with this object in view or not, have proven
admirably adapted to the realization of the
policy of extermination. Military cordons
were thrown about these stations at that
time, and from that day to this not a single
one of these pacificos has been allowed to
cross the lines of the station where he is
penned up, except on exceedingly rare oc-
casions, when one has now and again been
granted a military pass as a special and
often a very dearly bought favor, and the
permission given was, of course, for only a
very few hours. Another exception to this
general statement should be made in speak-
ing of Matanzas and Artemisa, where, on
many occasions, such of: the starving
peasants as seemed able to do any work at
all were told off to dig in the trenches, or
for any other work which the Spanish
soldier disliked, and to which the un-
armed Cubans were driven at the point of
the machete, and to which they were held
at the muzzle of the rifle.
Since the month of January. when, the
scant supply of provisions which the e
able to bring with them secretly from their
homes was exhausted, as well as their still
more scanty supply of money, these 400,-
000. people have been existing in abject
misery and want, and face to face with a
struggle for existence, which, however
bravely and courageously they may deport
themselves, is doomed from the very be-
ginning to be a hopeless and unsuccessful
one. In Pinar del Rio, the most westerly
province of the island, these stations of
starvation are situated for the most part
along the 180 kilometres of the western
railway, which extends from Havana to
the town of Pinar del Rio. In the stations
of Guanajay, Mariel, Candelaria, Conso-
lacion, San Cristoval, and Artemisa alone
these starving and homeless multitudes
numbering 60,000 souls. and the number
of those who have been delivered by death
from their captivity is estimated by the
most conservative observers of this colossal
massacre hy decree at 10,000 since the be-
ginning of this year. I have visited each
and every one of these stations, and believe
that the mortality has been much greater
than this, but I give the lowest figure that
has ever heen stated by any one at all con-
versant with the conditions of life in which
these wretched people are existing, or,
rather, being put to death by a process of
slow, cold-blooded torture. These deaths
have resulted from starvation and. from
smallpox, as well as a score of other dis-
eases which easily attack and easily over-
come those who are penned up in un-
healthy, malarial places, without food of
any kind, without work, and without
medical assistance. On the line of the
railway through Havana and Matanzas
provinces to the city of Matanzas there is
another series of starvation stations, of
which Jaruco and Matanzas are the most
populous and have suffered the largest
mortality, and from Matanzas to Villa
Clara and Cienfuegos this panorama of
human destitution and suffering extends
uninterruptedly, and with a monotonous
repetition at every station of heart-rending
scenes of want and of abject and hopeless
misery. In these lest mentioned stations
there are to be found to-day at least 200,-
000 starving people, without the barest
necessities of life, and with no hope or
prospect of obtaining them, or of any es-
cape from their deplorable and wellnigh
incredible situation, except for thoke who
prefer a quicker death and attempt to es-
cape from their peus, knowing that the
chances are more than ninety-five out of a
hundred that in endeavoring to cross the
lines they will fall into the hands of a
bloody thirsty and brutalized soldiery.
In addition to the stations already men-
tioned the Cabans of the peasant and small
farmer class ‘are ‘‘concentrated’’ on the
northern coast, principally in the towns of
Cardenas, of Sagua la Grande, and of
Caibarien, and upon the southern zoast in
Cienfuegos, Trinidad, and in Jucaro. In
the instances mentioned, where the places
designated as stations of concentration have
been situated outside the towns of some
importance and population, the starving
peasants have been unable to get work in
the few instancos that they have been al-
lowed to seek it, from the fact that in these
towns, before the country people were
driven there, was already a large popula-
tion absolutely without occupation or
wark of any kind, and in a condition only
g
a degree less deplorable than that of the
starving -country pcople themselves, be-
cause in these towns, as well as every-
whereglse in Cuba, all trade and industry
has been paralyzed if not completely de-
stroyed by the war. 7
There remain ahout twenty or thirty
sugar plantations in these four devastated
provinces where attempts are or were
being made a month ago to grind the cane
and to make the sugar crop. The
permits to do so were only obtained
by bribing the officials of/the Palaces
in Havana and by supporting the troops,
who are guarding the small centraleas,
and paying the blackmail which the
officers of these troops exact with cynical
frankness. These planters principally
Spaniards, Americans and foreigners, have
endeavored to recoup themselves for the
heavy expenditures outlined above hy re-
ducing the monthly wage of their laborers
from thirty or forty dollars a month to
from six to ten dollars a month.. These la~
borers have had no alternative but to ac-
cept ‘these starvation figures, and in the
very few instances that they have refused
to work, a bribe administered to the Span-
ish commandant of the station has always
been successful in having the laborers
forcéd to work at the point of the machete.
So the condition of these five or six thou-
sand men, who are permitted and in some
instances compelled to work under these
peculiar circumstances, is hardly more de-
sirable than that of those who are penned
up in the starvation stations and doomed
to die without any prospect of relief.
Indeed, their condition is a degree worse,
as their starvation is no less sure and a lit-
tle slower. ?
Of one thing I am quite certain, no as-
sistance can be expected for these people
from the Spaniards. - Even if in this our
day a miracle were wrought and they
could he endued with the spirit of the good
Samaritan, they would not have the means
to alleviate the sufferings which they have
so wantonly occasioned. It has been pro-
posed that the sentries who surround the
starving thousands and shoot down all who
reckless of the danger and maddened by
the sight of their “starving women and
children, attempt to pass the cordon should,
be withdrawn, and the concentrados of
penned-up peasantry be allowed to go out
and seek for food in the campo, or country
districts. I do not believe that even if the
Spaniards could be induced to take such a
step-it would afford very effective relief,
for this most rich and fertile country, the
*‘most rich and beautiful that ever human
eye beheld,”” as Columbus wrote back to
Spain after his discovery, is now a smok-
ing ruin, a heap of ashes and of graves, a
grim, gaunt panorama of what savage man
is capable of in the way of destruction. It
is to-day a land where spring-time has
brought not a single blossom or a promise
of harvest. I am referring now exclusive-
ly to the four western provinces where
Spanish influence is paramount, and not to
free Cuba beyond the Trocha, where, fortu-
nately. the spectacle is amore pleasing one.
If all the Spaniards, from Weyler to the
last corporal of the convict and jail-bird
guerrilla, were suddenly to be invested and
animated by the spirit of the good Samari-
tan, even then the situation would be but
little changed, and the outlook only a
shade less sombre. The Spanish army in
Cuba is absolutely destitute. There never
was an army so wanting in everything
which soldiers of a temperate country re-
quire when campaigning in the tropics as
are these wretched conscripts of Spain.
They are without those things which. aie
the common necessities of life to the Digger
‘ Indian or to the most primitive and seM-
sufficient cave-dweller. Leaving out of
consideration the guerrilas, those conviet-
trained bands who steal right and left, who
lay hands upon all they see and covet, and
who will be the last to starve (it is to be
hoped that they are reserved for hanging,
although that is almost too good for them),
and confining our attention to the regular
army alone, we wiil find that of all the
250,000 men of that great Armada, the
greatest in point of numbers that ever
crossed the Western seas, there are not left
to-day 5000 men capable of marching from
the Battery to Central Park with campaign
equipment. Some military critics have ex-
pressed their wonderment as to how Wey-
ler could get a quarter of a million men
upon the little island. He did accomplish
it, but it is only fair to say he might have
failed for want of room had he not put so
many of them underground and not in the
barracks. There are no reliable figures as
to the mortality in the Spanish army of oc-
cupation during the last two years. We
can only judge of the ravages which the
climate has wrought as we see the skeleton
regiments and the shrunken battalions
limp by. I‘ortunate indeed have been
those who have fallen by the Cuban bul-
lets. Fortunate indeed those who have es-
caped the Cavalry that awaits the wounded
or the sick Spanish soldier on his way from
the colors to the hospital and to the grave.
A Spanish soldier with sturdy constitution
may survive the swamp fevers and the ut-
ter want of wholesome rations and proper
clothing in the field. But once, however
slight his wound or his sicknesss—once
despatched to the hospital, his ease is hope-
less indeed ; and his comrades do not scru-
ple to divide up among them his poor be-
longings, knowing full well that while
some may have returned from the dead and
the grave, no. man ever come back from
San Ambrosio or similar hospitals. The
army surgeons have little or no quinine,
and in the few places where antiseptics |
have heen provided they are doled out so
carefully as to defeat their purpose ; for it
is announced that when the present supply
is exhausted there will be no more forth-
coming from Spain, and this is probably
true.
I have found it impossible either to grasp
myself or to present to others on a large
scale the spectacle of human misery and of
woe which Cuba reveals to the traveler to-
day. But we may perhaps draw aside at
least one corner of the heavy pall that the
last days of Spanish rule have thrown
about the land of sunshine and flowers and
look, if we have the heart, at one scene at
least of the ghastly blood-curdling pano-
rama. The Mariel-Majana Trocha, which
was devised to cut.off the Cuban forces in
Pinar del Rio from all assistance of the Cu-
ban armies in the east until the Spanish
columns in the fields have worn them
down and compelled surrender, will
serve as an illustration of the useless labor
upon which the Spanish troops have been
engaged, and how deadly to soldiers the
perfectly silly and useless task has proved.
The Trocha, or military trench, across
Pinar del Rio was dug out and an embank-
ment thrown. up, with little forts built
here and there, hy the Spanish government.
In many places the trenches ran through
swamps, and the long covered up and de-
caying vegetable matter that was now ex-
posed to the hot rays of the tropical sun
bred a malarial pestilence which, from No-
vember 1 last to March of this year, in-
valided 12,000 men, only counting those
who were working upon the trench and the
detachments. that were stationed there to
guard it These figures, though from
Spanish sources, are reliable, though the
figures that the same doctors of the Span-
a
ish army from whom I gathered the fore-
going send home to Madrid are not.
reason of this singular system of ‘‘double
entry’”’ book-keeping is somewhat as fol-
lows: Itis not worth while lying about
the number of the sick. In fact, it is just
as well to havea good round number of
them as a pretext and excuse to draw the
medical supplies, which never reach the
hospitals. But it would not do to an-
nounce anything like the real number of
deaths, because, among other reasons, the
names of the dead soldiers would then he
taken off the pay-rolls, and that would
never do ; for the officers, who are drawing
the pay of these dead men, need these little
perquisites so much. :
I have often thought, as I rode along the
Trocha, which, even in its palmy days, im-
mediately after its construction, seemed to
me the most useless and ineffectual of
mediwxeval devices, what a senseless and sin-
fol waste of human energy and life there
has been here. For the banks are lined
throughout its length with at léast ten
thousand graves. The Suez Canal, that
will live through all the ages as one of the
crowning achievements of our century,
hardly cost humanity as many victims, and
the monument they builded to themselves
will survive imperishable for all time. But
the ditch which the poor conscript of Spain
built has gone to rack and ruin, and the
rains of the last month have well nigh
washed away alike all traces of their use-
less labor and their shallow graves, and
they are no more remembered save in the
darkened homes in the tawny Peninsula,
where Rachel is weeping for her children
and will not be comforted. It is only the
mothers of Spain who realize the terrible
discrepancy of numbers between the list of
soldiers that is sent home to the Treasury
Department in Madrid and that sadly
shorter list which is furnished to the com-
manding officers—a list of 1eally effective
men, which is sent up to Havana when
every now and then it.is proposed by Wey-
ler to undertake active operations in Cuba.
The situation in Cuba to-day is perfectly
clear and simple. In the western pro-
vinces we find between three and four hun-
dred thousand people penned up in starva-
tion stations, and a prey to all kinds of
epidemic disease. They are without means
and without food, and with only the shel-
ter that the dried palm leaves of their
hastily erected bohios afford, and in the
rainy season that is now upon them that is
no shelter at all. They have less clothing
than the Patagonian savages, and, half
naked, they sleep apon the ground, expos-
ed to the noxious vapors which these low
lying swamp lands emit. They have no
prospect before them but to die, or, what
is more cruel, ‘to see those of their own
flesh and blood dying about them, and to
be powerless to succor and to save. About
these starvation stations the savage sentries
pace up and down with ready rifle and bar-
ed machete, to shoot down and cut up any
one who dares to cross the line. And yet,
who are these men who are shot down in
the night like midnight marauders? And
why is it they seek, with all the desperate
courage of despair, to cross that line where
death is always awaiting their coming, and
almost invariably overtakes them? They
are attempting nothing that history will
preserve upon its imperishable tablets, or
even. this passing generation remember.
No, they are simply attempting to get be-
yond the starvation lines to dig there po-
tatoes and yams to bring home again to the
hovel in which their families are housed
with death and hunger all about them.
And they do their simple duty, not blinded
as to the danger or without warning as to
their probable fate, for hardly an hour of
their interminable day passes without their
hearing the sharp click of the trigger and
the hoarse cry of the sentry which precede
the murderous volley ; and every morning,
throngh the narrow filthy lanes upon
which their huts have been erected, the
guerillas drive along the pack-mules bear-
ing the mutilated bodies of those who have
been punished cruelly for the crime of seek-
ing food to keep their children from starv-
ing. This colossal crime, with all the re-
finement of slow torture, is so barbarous,
so bloodthirsty, and yet so exquisite, that
the human mind refuses to believe it, and
revolts at the suggestion that it was con-
ceived, planned, and plotted by a man.
And yet this crime, this murder of thous-
ands of innocent men, women, and child-
ren, is being daily committed in Cuba, at
our very doors, and wellnigh in sight of
our shores, and we are paying very little
heed to the spectacle.
Ontraged bumanity in Spain itself has
protested, and that noble paper thelmpar-
cial of Madrid has told the Spanish people
of all the horrors and the cruelties that are
being perpetrated in Cuba in their name.
The whole infamy of Weyler’s scheme of
pacification has been exposed in eloquent
and adequate language in the columns of
this and other Spanish papers, which have
refused to allow themselves to be blinded
by the bull-baiting fury that is prevalent
in Madrid to-day. They know, then, what
they do and what is being done in- their
name by the viceroy. No help to the
starving or a word of rebuke for the slangh-
ter can be expected from the far away pow-
ers of Europe. We alone have the mo-
nopoly of long distance philanthropy,
which is practised only too often in the an-
tipodes, and not at our doors, where it is
most needed.
In these leaking huts, where the dead
and thedying lie huddled together, un-
ceasing prayers are being offered up to Our
Lady of Pity, whose shrine in the far-off
Cobre mountains they have all visited and
in happier days decked out bright with
flowers. And I believe these prayers will
be heard in these United States. If we
look away and turn a deaf ear to these cries
of our brothers, if we send out succor only
to the starving Hindoos and our arms only
to the Greeks, we shall stand revealed and
disgraced before the Christian world as not
“doers of the World, but hearers only”’—
STEPHEN BONSAL in Harper's Weekly.
Nobody in Pennsylvania wants to
be taxed any more than at present, in
consequence of which the financiers of the
Legislature are in sore-straits. The scheme
to tax beer has been knocked on the head ;
ditto the scheme to increase the tax on cor-
porations : the farmers agree with the oleo
men@n opposing a tax on their product ;
the plan to take money from the cities to
replenish the State treasury died at birth,
and so of all the schemes to increase the
State’s revenues.
There is a very simple way of solving
the revenue problem by pruning the ap-
propriations to fit the present revenues.
This plan doesn’t seem to have occurred to
the Legislature yet, and until it does the
Legislature is\going to be in trouble. The
search for somebody willing to pay more
taxes is likely to be about as fruitless as
the search for the North Pole.—Philadel-
phia Times. :
——American firms own 4235 square
miles of timber lands in. the province of
Ontario alone, and their exports of logs to
the United States reach the large total of
nearly 250,000,000 feet yearly.
The |
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN.
When a new ice box is purchased, and to
buy one at second-hand is an economy al-
ways repented in dust and ashes, be sure
to have its ice chamber filled as full as it
will‘hold, and with just.one or two large
pieces of ice. Many and small pieces melt
away rapidly. When so filled let the re-
frigerator stand, all its food chambers-emp-
ty, for twelve hours, and at the end of that
time the interior will give forth an arctic
chill. By this time dishes of food may be
put on shelves, the ice compartment re-
plenished, and in future but a small piece:
of ice every twenty-four hours in the warm-
est weather, will keep the compartment as
full as it can hold. :
In order to save in ice and keep the in-
terior of the box very dry and cold, never
put any dishes: or bottles in with the ice
itself. Never wrap up the ice in wool or’
paper, and in chipping off pieces don’t
leave any small bits lying about the com-
partment.- Then, above all, never puta
dish of hot substance into the food com-
| partment. Put a dish of hot onions, kid- -
neys, cabbage, etc., onto the shelves, and
in ten minutes every other dish will as-
sume ‘their unpleasant odor and flavor,
and the shelves will begin to grow damp.
Put any one of the above mentioned foods
into the chest cold and the most delicate
jelly will come out fresh and untainted.
The chief effort of the housekeeper must
be to have the interior of her refrigerator
perfectly dry, and to see how well she is
succeeding a sponge can be left on a shelf
and felt every day to see whether it is moist
or not. In order to prevent an accumula-
tion of stale odors in the food compartment
-it should once in ten days be washed out.
That is, all dishes removed and a cloth,
wrung out in warm soap suds, passed over
the walls and shelves. Wherever the cloth
goes a towel should follow, to rub every
inch of the interior perfectly dry.
Gowns with ruffled skirts are not a nov-
elty by any means, but when the rufiles
start from the side seams, leaving a plain
panel in front there is something very
Parisian in the effect.
No matter what shape your throat is—
skinny or plump, there is a remedy in the
new collars. For shirt waists, even the
strict collar with its narrow tie has given
way to the small turnover that allows the
broad, bright colored ribbon to wind about
it twice, before being tied in a flaring,
four-in-hand in front. Every one knows
that bows in the back are out, but the bows
in front have grown more elaborate than
ever. - Bright plaid ribbon makes the pret-
tiest &nd can be worn with any gown. As
if in very defiance of the elaborate collar-
ing that can be worn, some of the most
modish shirt waists of silk and ribbons.
have plain white linen collars. Collars of
ribbon are very fashionable. They are
wound about the neck twice and tied ina
four-in-hand in front. The edges are ruffl-
ed with lace and the ends: are allowed
to fall to the waist.
= &
The traveling gown par excellence this
year will be the tailor made one of cheviot,
with fly front or Eton jacket and skirt ac-
companied by a shirt waist, either of wash
material or silk. Many prefer the former,
because they can carry an extra one in their
grip, while fully as many claim that the
latter does not soil so easily. If a silk one
is chosen, a linen collar and bow tie should
be worn with it. To match the jubilee
vear we are having a Victorian revival in
dress, and the styles of the beginning of her
reign are much in vogue. Sloping shoul-
ders are promised, and fichus are to be very
much worn, crossed in front and tied be-
hind at the waist line. Nearly all the hats
are trimmed very high on the left side.
here seems to be no distinctive shape ; all
kinds and all sorts are seen. Very smart
ones have somewhere a touch of scarlet,
while the most desirable ones are made
from satin straw braid. and are miniature
flower gardens, so posey bestrewn are
they.
Spring wraps, which . will be used again
next fall, are in two distinct sorts—the fly-
front jacket for younger women, and the
cape for elderly ones. Awfully swagger
ones, for wear with heavy white pique
skirts, in the mountains or at the seashore,
are in dark blue or red, with plain stitch-
ing, white lining, white pearl buttons,
loose fronts and smart pocket flaps in un-
expected places. Accompanied by white
English walking hat, white gloves, and
plain white parasol, the ensemble is better
imagined than described. :
No tuckings to come within the require-
ments of fashion should be more than one
eighth of an inch in width : furthermore,
they must be gathered and congregated to-
gether to a depth of four or five inches.
They are thus employed for yokes, to in-
sert on the arm below the shoulder puff
and round the skirt from the waist. Hun-
dreds of workwomen devote themselves to
nothing else but the production of these
tucking, and a skilled tucker makes a good
living. Dressmakers are complaining
loudly of the lack of employes, which is
hard, seeing that we have not for years had
so much work in the dresses.
When women wear jackets as persistent-
ly as our women do, they should know a
lot about vests to make the changes fre-
quent and clever. To go always with a
conventional cotton or silk shirt waist
under a jacket, argues a lack of inventive
genius. A woman who can wear many
fancy fronts with different colored girdles
and stocks, is a woman who will be the
envy of her friends. I know a woman who
can do this thing, and do it well. She has
a steel blue suit of face cloth, made with a
short*jacket. Here are some of her varia-
tions. A front of fine Swiss, daintily tuck-
ed with lace insertion, the whole made
made over a piece of blue silk. A girdle
of blue taffeta and a stock: collar of the
the same with a narrow linen collar above.
One of dark blue mousseline oh which she
had appliqued cut lace, to imitate Honiton;
this over green taffeta, with green girdle
and ribbons to wind ahout the throat under
a narrow ruching of white. A front of pale
yellow muslin, finely tucked-and divided
by bands of butter cup lace, made np over
pale blue or white, and blue or white.
girdle, and collar to match. You see how
many changes this makes? To say noth-
ing of the opportunities it gives a woffian
to match the flowers in her hat. The
woman who has-a black or gray suit, can
wear almost any color she wishes in these
fronts. She should certainly have a gera-
nium colored one. Make it of red muslin
with an applique of yellow lace, and make
the girdle of black satin, very narrow with
a double knot in front; if she wears a
geranium colored tie, have it of silk ‘rib-
bon or taffeta.
The odor of onions may be removed by
| eating a sprig of parsley.
A
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