HORRIBLE BRUTALITIES IN CUBA.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 177, 26 June 1873, Page 3

HORRIBLE BRUTALITIES IN CUBA.

News of terrible atrocities an'l carnage ai rive from Cuba. ' The Times correspondent says there is, he has reason to believe, no exaggeration whatever in the tale 9 the world has heard of Wholesale butcheries and wonton cruelties perpetrated by the Spaniai ds in the disaffected districts. In the regions of the Cinco Villas, the Spaniards went to work on the principle that "prevention is better than .cure." They took the disaffection for granted, and determined that it should never ripen into wide-spread open rebellion :—" Not only did they shoot all the insurgents whom they caught with amis in their hands, but they slew without mercy many of the unarmed fugitives whom terror .of their approach had driven into the woods, and they doomed to the same fate others who had remained quietly under their roofs, but who were suspected of sympathy with the rebd cause. I know the case of a Cuban, the owner of a sugar plantation, guilty of no other crime than .trying, not unsuccessfully, the experiment of cultivation by f i cc labour. The volunteers of the petty towns in the neighbourhood invaded and 1 .waged "his estate, and denounced him to the soldiers, who arrested him, shot two of his foremen and several inoffensive countiymen before his eyes in cold blood and without even the pretence of a trial, and threatened him with the same fate, the officer in command meeting all hjs protests and remonstrances with the cool remark : ' All 1 know is that if I shoot you I shall have one step's promotion.' The prisoner slipped through h.is hands nevertheless, and upon desiring himself of all imputations before the Captain-General at Havannah, he was rearsmed as to his personal safety ; but the general at the same time advised him, ' a8 a friend,' to say nothing about damage* for his destroyed property, as, ' under the circumstances, ho ought only be too thankful to have escaped with his life ' The insurgents, on their own side, take fearful reprisals. The practice with them when a pusoner, and especially an officer, falls into their hands, is to tie his feet up to a tree, and to pile up fuel under the dangling head, thus burning their enemy alive with a slow fire. The rule is that all persons be shot without discrimination. Nay, the conquerors even grudge their powder and ahot, and the victims are more usually despatched with machetes, a kind of long-chopping knife or cutlass peculiar to a cane-growing country, and to be almost invariably seen at the side of .every combatant, as wqll as in every labourer's hand, Some of the soldiers and volunteers have acquired such skill in the use of this weapon that they cut off a man's head with all the mastery of professional executioners. These men march in the rear of tbeir detachments, and upon any person being apprehended, the officer in command, after a brief examination, orders the prisoner ' to the rear,' where he is immediately hacked to pieces by the inexorable macheleros. As a rule, also, the oodies of the |slain are always left uuburied on the spot where they fall. The turkey -buzzards swarming cxery where in the island, and whose life la protected by law on account of their usefulness as public scavengers, fatten on the rotten ljuinan (Sircoses ; and it is not without a shudder that one sees the ioul birds hovering everywhere in the nir, and pacing themselves on their wjugs above the foiests wlit-ie tho remnants of their hideoug feasts in every stage of decomposition stjllattract them . Women fare as badly in the hands o( the combatants as men, unless their personal attractions recommend them to a temporary repieve, and put off £heir execution till they have endured ajl conceivable out-

rages. Houses, where scores of young women were biding, have been entered by a licentious soldiery with officers at their head, by whom every woman was. first violated, tben killed. There have been instances of wi\ es w hose husbands WJre cither lulled before tlieu very eyes or driven to the bush in sheer despair, and who presently made friends with the oflicers who hid widowed them, consenting to live with them on any terms Of this latter fact 1 hayo been assured equally by Spiuuida and by Cubans ; with this difference, however, that the foimer quoted it as evidence of the innate baseness and depravity of Creole women, while the latter oontended that their women, iv consenting to live with their captors, did so from a vindictive design to deal with them as Deldahs— a design which iv many cases was carried into execution, the women acting as spies upon their new lovers' movements, and leading them into insurgent ambushes. People in the ' Five Towns ' grow very eloquent when they relate the exploits of a very h vndsome girl, whom they call ' The Maid of Las Tunas.' This fair adventuress used to ride about iv arms, Amazon-like, as a scout to the insurgents, with all the zeal and intrepidity of Garibaldi's young Countess at Varese She fell three times into the hands of the Spaniards, to whom she had become well known. Twice her charms redeemed her from the hands of the ofh'ceis, but in the third instance she came into the hands of a less susceptible warrior, who delivered her over to the brutality of his soldiers, after which he doomed her to Joan of Arc's fate "

Count MoiiTKE — The Luheck Gazelle publishes tho following letter from Count Moltke, which appears to have been addressed to some enterprising German publisher. The letter is dated Kreisau, October 15, 1872 :— " To jour letter of the 11th instant, I reply that it will not bo possible to gam from my youth an interesting account for tho public. I am the third of seven sons of my father, the Danish LieutGeooral yon Mollko. My mother was Henrietta Paschen, daughter of tho Couucillor of Finance Paschen, of Hamburg After his marriage my father purchnaed property— first in the Preignitz, and afterwards in Mecklenburg. I was born on tho 28th of October, 1800, in the town of Parlnm, where my parents were on a visit with my uncle Holmuth yon Moltke, who in 1812, marched with the Mecklenburg battalion to Russia, and perished there. I received the name Helmuth Karl Bernbardt. I went with my parents to Lubeck, where in 1806 our house was sacked by the French. My earliest remembrances relate to Lubeck and its old gates and towers, and I have, after long years, immediately recognized our old house at the Schrongen, notwithstanding the changed neighbourhood. In the meantime my father had bought tho property of Augußtenhof in Holstein. A year after it was burnt down with the whole of the harvest. Soon after my grandfather, who disposed of a largo fortune, died. His will contained numerous and large legacies. He had not considered the very numerous losses which the war had caused to him. My mother, as universal legatee, had to bear them, and therefore the inheritance was reduced almost to nothing. The property had to bo sold. In tbe meantime I had been sent with my elder brother to the Land Cadets' Academy in Copenhagen. As alumni we passed there a joyless youth. At the age of 18 I became an officer. Tho small 'outlooks' (to use Mr Carlylc's favorite term for the German Amsichtcn) which the Danish military scnios offered made me desirous to enter into the Prussian army, where my father and several of his brothers had also served With good recommendations from the chief of my regiment, the Duke of Holstein, father of the present King of Denmark, I went to Berlin, passed the officers' examination, and was immediately appointed to the Body-iniantry Regiment, No 8. From thence begins my aufliciently-kiiown military career. The writings I have published are the Russo-Turkish Campaign and Letters from Turkey (tho campaigns in Italy, Denmark, and Austria are not by me, but by the Historical Department of the General Staff) By me are also maps of Constantinople and the Bosphorus and the environs of Rome, and also the essential part of Kipert's map of Asia Minor."— Pall Mall Gazette. The following is the Chief Officer's account of the loss of the Atlantic : — " My watch was ended at 12 o'clock on Monday night. The second and fourth officers took charge, and I went to my berth. I was aroused by the shock of the striking. The second officer came down to my room, and •aid the ship waa ashore, and that he was alraul sho wai gone. I put on a few articles of clothing, got my axe, and went on deck to clear tbe boats. The ship had careened over before I reached the deck. I cleared the two starboard boats. Just then a heavy sea swept the boats away. I was holding fast to the mainmast rigging, and now climbed higher for safety. The night was so dark, and the spray flevr so thick, that we could not sre well what was going on around us. I saw men on the rocks, but did not know how they got there. All who were alive on board were in the rigging. When daylight came I counted thirty-two persons in the raizenmast rigging with me, including one woman. When these saw that there were lines between tho ship and the shore many of them attempted to go forward to the line, and in doing «o were washed oyerboard and drowned. Many reached the shore by the aid of the lines, and the fishermen's boats rescued many more. At last all had either been washed off or resouod except myself, the woman, and a boy. The sea had become so rough that the boat could not venture near us. Soon the boy was washed off, but he swam gallantly and reached the boats in safety. I got a firm hold of the woman and secured her in the rigging. I could see the people on shore, and id tbe boats, and could hail them, but they wero unable to help. At two o'clock in tho afternoon, after I had been in the rigging ten hours, the Rev Mr Ancient, a Church of England clergyman, whose noble conduct I can never forget while I live, got a crew of four men to row Jinn out to the wreck. He got into the main-rigging and procured a line, then advanced as far as he could towards me nnd threw it to me. I caught it, made it fast round my body, and then jumped clear. A sea swept me off the wreck, but Mr Ancient held firm to the line, pulled me back, and got me safely into tho boat. I was then so exhausted and benumbed that I was hardly able to do anything for myself, and but for tho clergyman's gallant conduct I must have perished soon. The woman, after bearing up with remarkable strength under her great trials, had died two hours before Mr Ancient arrived. Her half-nude body was still fast in the rigging ; her e\es protruding, hor mouth foaming, a terrible ghastly spectacle, rendered more ghastl/ by the contrast with the numerous jewels which sparkled on her hands The scene at the wreck was nn aw ful one, such as I have never before witnessed, and hope never to watuosa again." Mounted Riflemen. — Apropos of tho employment of mounted riflemen, a correspondent calls our attention to an objection which he thinks is very generally overlooked, to wit, the enormous wear and tear of horses thm involved. In the reports of tbx}" Quartermaster-General's Department of the United States army, it is asserted that in active field operations of the kind referred to, it was found necessary to remount every officer and soldier once in four months. In the army of the Potomac alone, in the year 1863, tho number ,of cavalry horses placed hors de combat was 3 5,078, or 2^ horses killed or ruined for every mounted man of the force within a space of twelve months. Our correspondent does not, says the Broad Arrow, dispute the value of a corps of mounted riflomeo under certain circumstances ; but he observes that the presence of the horses under fire is objectionable : the real object of mounting bodies of riflemen is to increase their mobility out of range. Ho asks whether it woidd not be possible, in the majority of cases, to secure the re/jnisite mobility by employing light, strongly-built " outside cars," well horsed and well driven, each carrying six to ten infantrymen in light marching order. A» the men could spring off the cars in ca6o of need, tho mobility attained would probably be, under ordinary circumstances, as great as that of Hussars carrying riflemen on their croups, if not, indeed, of a corps of mounted riflemen proper. Iho difficulty of managing the riderless horses during a skirmish, and much of tho wear and tear above alluded to, would bo avoided. A few extra feeds for the horses, and some suitable pioneer tools, and a supply of gun-cotton in discs, with fuses, &c, might also be carried in the cars much more readily than in tho saddles. Presumably these cars could cover as many miles in a day, on a road, as the light delivery vans used by tradesmen, and, in case of need, with a light load ; and for shorter distances, they might be driven with the rapidity of a London fire-engine. In going straight across country they would be at an immense disadvantage, but would this be so often inevitable in European campaigning ? In a Gipps Land Police-court, the other clay, a man named Charley Mann, a barber, was charged with using obscene language — that convenient police phrase — and in defence, spoke as follows : — " Your worships, I am the victim of misplaced confidence in a jealous and designing woman. I never can attend a public meeting of an evening but that on my return, she harrows my feelings by an ill-conceived suspicion of my constancy. lam a barber, your worship, and my domicile is uufortunately of limited dimensions, consequently, after a close and unflinching attention to business throughout tho day, when the shades of night approach 1 require fresh air. A barber, as your worships i.r • doultless aware requires to kepp his hands scrupulously clean and neat (derisive laughter.) Consequently, sirs, if my wife, in a fit of jealousy, throws a bucketful of dirty soapsuds over my head, I submit, your worships, that it is sufficient to wako my wrath and stir my very soul— in fact, enough to rouso the fire of the British lion, much less a poor barber. Ah ! when I think of it, I exclaim with Beauscant, in the ' Lady of Lyons,' ' My bilo o'erbiles ; my circulation stops ; my very blood'b acidulated drops.' " Here the injured wifo ejaculated, but was immediately silenced by a severe frown from tho Bench, whe, after listening patiently to Charley's ablo address, remarked that if tbe Government funds were not immediately increased to the extent of 20s Charley might retire to the secluded shelter of Mr Cassidy'B suit of apartments for the brief and fleeting space of 48 houri. " I'll take it out," echoed througli the court in manly tonei from the objee*. of interest ; and, with a majestic wavo of hU hands, and a smile of supreme contempt illuminating the classic beauty of his features, "I'll lulco the whole of it.' : His amiable better hall now mourns his absence.

Tho man who threatens the world is always ridiculous ; for the world can easiiy go en without him, and, in a short timo tcaso to uiiss him.

A Monstee VvEvrox.— Our correspondent ul Woolwich informs us tlmt drawing have been sent to tho Wat' Oilice, with a view to the construction of two 30-ton gins (15 tons heavier tlian the ' Woolwich Inf nits') at the Koj ll Arsenul, in case it should bo thought desirable to arm ironclads ol'tlio Tenu'rairo class with wrapons of that magnitude. Store than tins the authorities of the Royal Gun Factor.es hnvo designed, and are prepared to construct, n gun upon the Fraser system of gun-building, 70 tons in weight, and to throw a projectile of l-tOOlba. With this, the most approved system of constructing guns by coil upon coil of wrought iron, there is practically no limit to fcho sizo of the gun which can be produced, and the gunmakers of the Uoj.il Arson il aro ready, if required, to make a weapon that will utterly deatroy anything that can float. The 70-ton, presuming it to bo twice ai powerful as the 'Woolwich Infnnt,' would pierce 28 inches ot armour-plate at the distance of a mile nnd a half, and would cany shot wt-igliing upwards of half a ton sixteen miks On a bitter cold d.iy a millionaire applied at a railway ticket office for a tlnr J-clas3 ticket. " What ?" exclaimed the official, who knew him, "you, sir, take a third-class ticket on such a clay ih this?" — '' fVhy, laiast/'was the cool reply, " huisp t'lwe is no fourth class.' — " I beg your pardon,"* answered the official, handing him a ticket, " but the.-c is . here is one." The man of wealth hastily paid fjr it, and rushed forward to take his place. On tho door-keeper asking to see his ticket, tho traveller produced it, and wns rather taken back on being told that tho ticket would not do for him. " And why not ?" ho exclaimed. — " Why, sir because it is a dog-ticket ! " The readiness of the Hebrew race in finding apt answers to complaints was perhaps never better exemplified than m n recent instance which occurred in Sydney. Visitors to Sydney may know Lev}'-, eat ng-house, and may Imre tabled his capital soup, which he dispenses at a penuy a basin. Not long since one of his customers, a cabman (cabmen are very fond of 6oup), having quickly consumed his pennyworth, told the accommodating Hebrew that Ills soup wns bad, he had found in it a piece of worsted stocking. Levy retorted, " D'ye think I could afford to put bits of silk stocking in soup at a penny a basin." One of the gasometers of the Corporation Q-asworks in Rochdale road was destroyed by fire. The flames could not be checked until tho whole contents of the gasometer, about. 600,000 feet of gas, had been consumed. Many of the inhabitants of tho, neighborhood hurried away with loads of their furniture, fearing an explosion, but nothing of the kind occurred. The damage done, however, will exceed £5,000. We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and becoma really expensive while we are only rich, in possibility. We live up to our expedntious, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what wo arc. We outrnn our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of same future place, project, or reversion, that we may have in view. The London correspondent of the Scotsman says : — " I hear that Mr Millais meditates painting a picture which will reproduce an incident of the shipwreck of the Northfleet — the scene wherein Captain Knowlea threatened with a rerolver the cowards who w ere intent upon saving themselves before the women and children." An old toper, who had lately attended the Polytechnic, where tho learned professor caused several explosions to take place from gases pro luced under water, said, " You don't catch me putting much water into my liquor after this. I had no idea before that water was so dangerous, though I never used much of it." Old Scotch lady : "Take a smiff.'sir? "— Gkutleravi (with large nasal' promontory : "Do I look like a snutier ? "" — 01<l Indy : " Well, I canna jisf, siy you do, thoug'i I uidun say }c hae great necommodatwns." A young la ly of New York, who is partially deaf, is in the habit of answering " yes " to everything when a getitleman is talking to her, for fear he ini^ht propose to her and she uot hear it. A ceitain minister took for the morning text, "Yo are of your father the devil" — and in the evening, unconsoiously, " Children, obey your parents." Fame and honour were purchased at a bitter pennyworth by satire, rathur than by a-ny oslicr productions of the bi am : the world being soonest provoked to lashes, a3 men aro by io-ve.