Their houses were burned, their fields and plant beds destroyed, and their live stock driven away or killed.
I estimate that probably 200,000 of the rural population in the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara have died of starvation or from resultant causes, and the deaths of whole families almost simultaneously or within a few days of each other, and of mothers praying for their children to be relieved of their horrible sufferings by death, are not the least of the many pitiable scenes which were ever present. In the provinces of Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba, where the "reconcentrado order" could not be enforced, the great mass of the people are self-sustaining.
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A daily average of 10 cents' worth of food to 200,000 people would be an expenditure of $20,000 per day, and of course the most humane efforts upon the part of our citizens can not hope to accomplish such a gigantic relief, and a great portion of these people will have to be abandoned to their fate.
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I am, etc.,
Mr. Lee to Mr. Day.
No. 744.]
Havana, January 13, 1898.
Sir: I have the honor to inclose a translation of an editorial published in the Diario de la Marina of to-day.
I am, etc.,Fitzhuge Lee.
[Translation.—From the Diario de la Marina, of Havana, January 13, 1898.]
Perdonalos, Senor. * * * (Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing).
They came against the Diario.
They cried out against it.
They stoned it.
And the separatists looked on with joy.
And the laborantes (abettors of the rebellion), of all well known, could not restrain their rejoicing.
It was natural; what a great victory for them!
What was not accomplished by Maceo, nor Quintin Banderas, nor Maximo Gomez, was accomplished yesterday by an unconscious mob; carrying disorder, carrying riot, carrying anarchy into the heart of Havana.
And the foreign consuls witnessed the shameful spectacle from the balconies of the Hotel Inglaterra!
What shame!
Down with the Diario de la Marina! Death to the Diario de la Marina! And Maximo Gomez alive! And Calixto Garcia alive! And the assassins of the martyr Ruiz also alive!
Poor Spain!
What a difference between yesterday and to-day: Yesterday, your sons, liberals and reactionaries, fell in the streets of Madrid, fighting together the common enemy, against the oppressors of Europe, against the invincible hosts of the great Napoleon. To-day the bravery and the patriotism and the heroism consist in shouting, in outraging, and in knifing, if possible,,defenseless journalists, against whom the action of the laws of the State and in the last extreme, the laws of honor, are sufficient in any civilized country.
But what pains us the most is not this; what our hearts lament at present is not