ebellion.

"3. The owners of cattle must drive their herds to the towns, or the
immediate vicinity of the towns, for which purposes proper escorts will
be given them.

"4. When the period of eight days, which shall be reckoned in each
district from the day of the publication of this proclamation in the
country town of the district, shall have expired, all insurgents who may
present themselves will be placed under my orders for the purpose of
designating a place in which they may reside. The furnishing of news
concerning the enemy, which can be availed of with advantage, will serve
as a recommendation to them; also, when the presentation is made with
firearms in their possession, and when, and more especially, when the
insurgents present themselves in numbers.

Valeriano Weyler."

* * *

Was there ever a more damnable--there is no other word for it--a more
damnable proclamation issued?

And the result? Words can scarcely do justice to it. It was the
death-sentence of thousands and thousands of innocent people, the large
majority of whom were women and children.

The peasant farmers, with their families, were only allowed to bring
with them what they could carry on their backs, when they were forced to
leave all that they had in the world, and remove to the places of
"concentration," where it was impossible for them to make a living.

Before leaving they saw their houses and crops burned, and their live
stock, be it much or little, that they possessed, confiscated.

Starvation was before them, and starve they did. And let the reader bear
this fact well in mind--these were non-combatants, women and children.

The deaths have occurred in ghastly numbers. More than two hundred
thousand have perished from starvation and starvation alone, with no
hand from the government stretched out to aid them. The record made by
the butcher and the butcher's emissaries is without parallel in all
history. No wonder that the United States held its breath in horror,
before raising its mailed hand to strike forever the chains from this
suffering people.

General Weyler did not care how deeply he should wade in blood, nor to
what age or sex this blood belonged, so long as he should attain his
ends.

Talk as you please about the atrocities of the Turks, but they pale
before those of the Spaniards in Cuba; acts committed, too, not in
secret, but openly and by public proclamation.

Read what Stephen Bonsal, who was an eye-witness,