recent refusal to exchange the gallant Hobson and his comrades. To be
sure, according to international law they are not compelled to do this,
but it is doubtful if there is another civilized nation (by the way, it
is an undeserved compliment to intimate that Spain is civilized), which
would have acted as the country which boasts of its chivalry has done.

Just here, let us say that those acts of cruelty which have been
committed by the Cuban army have been very far from receiving the
sanction of their leaders. On the contrary, they have been done in
violation of the explicit orders of those leaders; and whenever the
offenders have been discovered, they have been hanged as bandits to the
limb of the nearest tree.

The hatred and barbarity which the Spaniards have without exception,
evinced toward the Cubans have done much to alienate the latter, have
been the chief causes why peace could not be maintained, and have made
only one outcome possible--the freedom and independence of the island.

We have already seen the humanity with which Gomez, Maceo and the other
Cuban chiefs treated the wounded of the enemy who chanced to fall into
their hands.

But how was it on the other side? How did the Spaniards behave toward
the insurgent wounded? When not killed at once and their sufferings
ended immediately, they were cast into loathsome dungeons, with
insufficient food and with no medical attendance whatever.

Now to a charge which has more than once been brought against Spain,
which has been brought against her recently, which her government has
indignantly denied, but which both in the past and the present has been
proved beyond any question of a doubt.

The charge refers to an action which, with the exception of Spain, has
never been committed but by the most savage tribes, the Indians of North
America and the inhabitants of darkest Africa. We do not think that even
the Turks were ever accused of such an atrocious, unspeakable act.

We mean the mutilation of the dead bodies (often in a horrible, obscene
way) left upon the battlefield.

It is with regret and loathing that we approach the subject. But facts
must be spoken.

There has been scarcely a combat between the Spaniards and the Cubans,
in all the revolutions which have occurred, where the former have not
been guilty of the revolting practice of the mutilation of dead bodies.

Indeed the most savage of tribes have never gone further in the demoniac
wreaking of