ECUADOR.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13411, 8 May 1912, Page 2

ECUADOR.

REPORTED BARBARITY

Scones of extraordinary barbarity woro witnessed in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, at the conclusion of the recent rebellion. The forces of reaction and clericalism triumphed in tho struggle, and tho loaders of tho rebellion,

headed by General Montero, were cap-, hired, tho prisoners were placed on trial in Quito, and a sentence of sixteen years' imprisonment was inflicted upon General Montero. The Court was crowded with soldiers belonging to the Government forces, and when the dcci- , sion of the military judges was an- | nounced there was an angry clamour for the death sentence. Uproar prevailed for a few moments, and then the rebel leader was shot down by the spectators. His body was thrown into the street and hideously .mutilated before it was burned in a bonfire. The other men who had been prominent in the reboi ranks reached Quito a few hours later !>}:• w.-.'-ii'; and v;ere taken to tho gr:-.)1. l--i.ror.gh ' tho threatening crowd, in a r;yjtor-car. Colonel Sierra was in command of the guard, and after he had placed the prisoners in their cells, he w>::'v:!rev nearly all tho soldiers. He tc;kl tho others, in the hearing of the \v;uti!!y; mob, that on no account must they use their arms against the citizens. "Withi;r an hour the gaol was storirod, r.nd the prisoners wore murdered in barbarous fashion. The editor | of tho Republican newspaper suffered among them. The bodies were dragged with ropes about the streets of Quito and finally were burned in a public square. The outrages were committed in broad daylight without the authorities making any attempt to check the mob. A correspondent of the London "Daily News" states that soldiers took an active part in the proceedings, and that members of tho Government watched, while- "ladies of Quito society ap-

plauded from their baloonies as tho bodies were- dragged past." All the foreigners ■in the town withdrew their flags when they saw what was happening, but the protest was not heeded.

. In a letter from New South Wafer received by -an Auckland resident, tIK writer refers in.an optimistic strain to the prospects of Newcastle. "I knew ii first," he writes, "seven and twenty years ago, and its progress has not bn?n nearly co great as I anticipated. The cause has been, I am inclined to think, chiefly labour troubles, which appear to have been perennial. But now it is forging ahead. The shipping is hugely on the increase, tho demand or bottoms for coal being unprecedented. I was assured that there art over one hundred vessels on their way thither for cargoes of coal, of which tlißv will take away not. far short of the huge quantity of a-quarter of n million tons —unless more labour troubles intervene."