Freeiand Trioune Established 1888. PUBLISHED EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY, BY THE TRIBDNE PRINTING COMPANY. Limited OFFICE: MAIS STREET ADOVE CENTRE. FREELAND, PA. SUBSCRIPTION KATES: One Year $1.50 Bix Months 73 Four Monihs 50 Two Mouths . .25 The time which the subscription is paid to Is on tne uddress label of each paper, the change of which to a subsequent date no comes a receipt for remittance. Keep the Azures in advance of the present 7, andthe Norwit li . i ~e - .wi ,L:S bank lias one deposit of 12,001. Several other banks carry single deposits in excess of 820, ''.I . There are not less than 271 individual do; o-it in the savings batik A of Connecticut above SIO,OOO, aud 1". ,112 between S2OOO and $lO,- ()()'. There am as many as 33,028 in dividual ucc u itr. of from SIOOO ta S2OOO. _______ vitlaten Tan to. "I suppose," she said, "yuu are a close student of literature?" "No," an swered the young man with blaek rimmed glasses, "I'm a student of 11- literature. I like dialect stories."— Washington Star. TVhr She Is; Popular. "You say the popular Miss Smftfc can play the piano. I never heard her." "That's just the point. She can but she doesn't." THE NANIGOS OF CUBA. True Story of the Infamous Secret Criminal Society That Has Terrorized the Island. THE RITUAL CAREFULLY GUARDED. j Considerable mention has been made I of the oircuuistauce that all the naui gos, the notorious criminal class of Cuba, were members of certain secret societies, about whose character and aims little is known here, and not a great deal more in the island in which they flourish. For mauy years it was believed there that the nanigos were a kind of Ivu Klux Society, whose members were banded together for the purpose of in juring their white neighbors. What gave rise to this belief, and for a long time supported it, was the circum stance that all the nanigos were col j ored men, but for more than thirty j years past white men have been asso ciated with them. From documents | discovered by the police, and seen by j the writer of this article, it appears that in 18C5, whenJGeneral Dulce gov erned the island, White Lodge (Juego j | de Blaucos) number two was founded, j Whence it is deducted that lodge num | ber one was already in existence. | Nor are these societies political as -1 sociatious devoted to a common end. In the separatist conspiracies the nani gos took no part as a body. There j were separatist nanigos, as there were ! nanigos who were loyal to Spain, and : there are nanigos of Spanish birth. That the nanigos have pursued no j common political or religious aim there is incontestable proof, which is that each lodge is absolutely separate from and independent of every other. There is no hierarchy, no species of grand lodge or centre of action and govern ment, Not only are the lodges not friendly, but they are frequently hos tile to one another. In Havana, when it is known that there has been a mid night brawl in some out-of-the-way quarter, some one will be sure to say, "that is because the Ecori Opo Lodge has declared war upon the Eviou i Lodge." | Nor is it even certain that these so cieties are recruited exclusively from , the criminal classes. The nanigos are not, indeed, models of propriety; I hut not all,or even the greater number, ; are professional thieves, or gamblers, or assassius, or men without settled j occupation. There are nanigos who ; follow a trade, aiul many of them are 1 cooks, barbers, bag-makers and butchers. There have also been in- I stances of young men of the upper classes who, from curiosity or a spirit of adventure, or from that morbid tendency which leads certain men of culture to seek associates among the scum of society, have joined the lodges of the nanigos. ! There is one trait common to all the nanigos—..hey are ostentatiously j courageous. To be a member of the society is to be accredited a brave I man. The reputation, deserved or not. of courage, gives prestige among the women of the lowest class, and | credit among the men of the populace. I Where no one is anyone, to come to I be a lianigo is to be someone. ! But what was the origin of this in stitution? Were its founders the | guapcs—that is, the men of strength and brutality, in the lower classes— or the criminals? Neither the one ; nor the other, for it is thought that the first nanigos were Africans; slaves some, others free, who banded togeth er to practice tho idolatrous rites they had brought from Africa. What tends in some degree to strengthen this opinion is tho African 1 character of some of the ceremonies and of the vocabulary in use among the nanigos. It is said that they sac rifice black liens, stripped of their feathers, and that in the places where they hold their meetings there is a log called the Palos IMecongo, which is for them what the altar is for others. This is what is said, but uo one who is not a nanigo can declare ; positively that he has seen all this, or that he has any certain knowledge of their ceremonies. The nanigo? have never been brought to public i trial in Cuba, nor has this curious in : stitution ever been thoroughly stud ied. Nanigos have been tried by the summary methods of the police courts, but the declarations drawn from them j by torture or threats have thrown but ; little light upon them. Not even the 1 origin of the word nanigo is known, j Some hold it to be purely African, | others Cuban; others say that it is | African-Portuguese. ! The nanigos have net a complete ! vocabulary of slang, like the argot of toe French, or the ealo of the Spanish criminal classes. They use, it may be, a limited number of words having ' a double meaning, but still Spanish i words. Their vocabulary is restricted, and also is composed of strange, bar barous words that have no connection with toe Spanish language, and that : have, in all probability, come from the Congo or from Guinea; such as, eu | cocoro, ntaquenanoue, manfunniua. ! Some os their songs are no less Af rican in character; and there are among them airs so original, oi such wild force or such plaintive sweetness, that they would make the reputation ! of a composer of foreign melodies. I What takes place at their cere i monies, what prayers they offer up | before the Palo Mecougo, whether ! this is for them the image of God, or j of one of their heroes, or whether it is ! a mere fetish, are questions which cannot be answered any more than one can explain the fact that mauy 1 nanigos profess religion, or the spe- I cies of mental hnlueination which leads Europeaus and descendants of ! Europeans, bfought up in the faith, I to take up African idolatry. Re ; gardiug these point nothing positive I is known in Cuba. In the localities, however, where people of doubtful character live— those who in Spain are called the clausula—the residents generally know who are and who are not nanigos, and the police know also, although they have frequently made persons appeal as such who were innocent of the charge. According to the police, the nanigos are known by an indelible blue mark whioh they tattoo on the back of the hand between the thumb and index-finger, and there have been periods during which the police have arrested hundreds of i persons in the streets to examine their hands. If these had a blue mark they were put in prison. Sailors with tattooed marks have sometimes been victims of this method of pursuiug nanigos, although they did not belong to any secret so ciety whatever. The real nanigos have declared that the blue marks proved nothing; that they were not a necessary requisite for membership in societies; anil that it would be a mis take for the nanigos to mark them selves in away that would serve to betray them. The police, however, have continued to regard with great suspicion the blue marks, and the plucked hens also. Wheu one of these is seen in the yard of a house it is concluded that a nanigo lodge is celebrating its rites within. Some years ago, a Governor of Havana, General Rodriguez Batista, boasted of having put an end by peaceable means to these secret so cieties. The heads of the.lodges de livered up to him the idols, drums and other paraphernalia of their worship; the press eulogized Seuor Rodriguez Batista highly, without taking the trouble to find out what arguments he might have used to produce such speedy results. But within a short time after the Gover nor's departure for Madrid the nanigos were again in the field. Under General Weyler's rule, aided by the circumstance that the existing state of war permitted the condemnation of accused persons without trial, that is, the employment of the authority of the police instead of the action of the courts, measures were taken to clear Havana of nanigos. About a thousand i persons were deported to Spain; and, according to the declarations of the | police, there remained in the city some I 7000 more. Of the thousand persons sent to Spain, it is not certain that all, or even I the greater part belonged to the association, and there arc strong j reasons for believing that many mis i takes were made. Any one who had I talked with the nanigos in the prisons ; of Havana, in the vessels in which • they were transported to Spain, or in 1 the Peninsula, afterwards, will have : heard many cf them say: "I was a member; but there are many here who ; were not members." They also gave the names, the occupation and the age I of the victims. I The method employed to determine | who should be transported could not !be more defective than it was. There j was no trial, nor anything resembling one. No proofs, no defence, no wit nesses, no publicity. Every Saturday , tho Chiefs of Police of all the districts • met together. Each one presented ] the list of persons arrested by him as ; supposed nauigos. If a magistrate was interested in any one arrested by | order of audthor magistrate, he spoke j in favor of his protege, who was set at liberty. In Havana it was regarded jas certain that the police accepted I money from those arrested. It is be -1 yond a doubt that the mauner of liv ing of all the police officials—in spectors, wardens, etc.. this not in accordance with the modest salaries j which they received, j The government of Madrid lias been . blamed without reason for having sent back to Cuba the men thus deported as nauigos. Ilaviug renounced her • authority over the island, Spain could j not retain in her prisons persons over i whom slio no longer exercised any 1 species of jurisdiction, and who, be sides, had not been condemned by any j regular court. j Tho fault was not in sending them I back to Cuba, but iu having taken ! them thence solely on the warrant of I a police that had by 110 means therepu tion of being over-scrupulous. I It is probable that under the new I rule uauiguria will disappear, for it is ' plain that its environment, bothpoliti- I cal and social, has contributed to the preservation of the association. The population of Cuba is composed of 1 three elements—the European, the 1 American, aud the African. 111 tho contact of races it is not one race only that is influenced and that undergoes modification. The European, and still ! more the American, of the poor aud ! ignorant classes iu Cuba, has become j Afrancanized. He has taken from the African words for his vocabulary and music for his songs. The rites of the nauigos show that he has also accepted something of his idolatry, a symptom which tells what would have been the I condition'of the island if there had not been a constant and abundant infusion I into its population of other blood. , Thanks to this infusion, Cuba and I Porto Rico are the only tropical coun j tries capable of an organization simi lar to that of the European States.— I New York Post. From an Obituary Notice. 1 "He was a man of great persever j ance anil enterprise. Nearly three years ago he buried his wife, with ' whom he had been united in marriage ' almost fifty years."—New York Com | uierciel Advertiser. A TERRIBLE SACRAMENT CLASS EATINC A RELIGIOUS CERE" MONY AMONG ARABS OF TUNIS. Altera Wlltl, Barbaric Dance, the De votees While in a State of Dcstucy Mas ticate nn