Poor Cuba by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 5, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 44.

Poor Cuba

By Editor

Poor Cuba.—There seems to be fully as much, if not more, reason for interference on the part of the United States in the Cuban situation than in the Turkish-Armenian troubles. The continuance of the war of coercion by Spain is fully as heartless as the conduct of Turkey, yet the Spanish Government professes to be Christian, and her wars are all conducted under the patronage of "the church." Even the official advices present a picture of horrible suffering, distress and want throughout the entire island. These advices say that if a correct judgment can be formed from the reports sent in from nearly every province, beginning at Santiago de Cuba, on the eastern end, to Pinar del Rio, at the western extremity, and which are published in the daily press, starvation appears to be stalking through Cuba. Hundreds of families are reported as famine-stricken in the interior, beyond the reach of government aid, while the cities and towns are overrun with destitute refugees, chiefly women and children, begging food from door to door and seeking medical assistance. Typhoid, yellow fever, and smallpox are epidemic in nearly every section. In the hospitals of Havana alone, the latest report gave the number of inmates at 10,140.