each at New Orleans, Jacksonville, Brooklyn,
Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and St. Augustine. There were also six in the
island of Jamaica, two in Mexico, and one in Hayti.

The multiplication of these organizations and their increasing activity
did not escape the observation of the Spanish government, which realized
that revolution was in the air, and that it behooved it to do something
to counteract it if it was to avoid losing the last remains of its once
vast American empire. Accordingly early in 1893 the Cortes at Madrid
enacted a bill extending the electoral franchise in Cuba to all men
paying each as much as five pesos tax yearly. The Autonomist party at
first regarded this concession with doubt and suspicion, but finally
decided to give it a trial and participated in the elections held under
the new law. But the result was unsatisfactory; owing, it was openly
charged, to gross intimidation and frauds by the Government. The sequel
was increased activity of the revolutionary organizations.

The Spanish government was vigilant and strenuous. It sent more troops
to Cuba, and it sent a large part of its navy to American waters, to
patrol the Cuban coast, to cruise off the Florida coast, and to guard
the waters between the two, in order to prevent the sending of
filibustering expeditions or cargoes of supplies from the United States
to Cuba. These efforts were so efficient that no important expeditions
got through. But in spite of that fact an insurrection was started in
Cuba in the spring of 1893.

The leaders were two brothers, Manuel and Ricardo Sartorius, of Santiago
de Cuba. On April 24 they put themselves at the head of a band of twenty
men and, at Puernio, near Holguin, they proclaimed a revolution. The
next day they were joined by eighteen more, and by the time they had
marched to Milas, on the north coast, the band was increased to 300,
while other bands, in sympathy with them, were formed at Holguin,
Manzanillo, Guantanamo, and Las Tunas. This movement, however, was
purely a private enterprise of the Sartorius Brothers; in which they
presumably expected to be supported by a general uprising of the Cuban
people. As a matter of fact there was no such uprising. The people
seemed indifferent to it. The juntas and clubs in New York and elsewhere
knew nothing about it. The Executive Committee of the Autonomist Party
in Cuba adopted resolutions condemning it and giving moral support to
the Spanish government, and th