THE COURIER.
CONDITIONS AT TAMPA.
The conditions at Tampa hare not
bam exaggerated by Poultney Bigelow.
A woman reporter in Town Topic says:
Taaapa certainly doe smell to Heaven!
Oar aoldiera come down here from the
north, wbeie there w God's pure air and
dTilised drainage, and they find a putri
fed hell. I know of no other way to ex
press it
Foaltney Bigelow did not exaggerate,
and neither did he tell the half. When
yoti add thiis eternal punishment of
heat to the other existing things the
horror of it as it is, and as it will be,
cuaot be pictured by pen. The Poult
Bey Bigelow article kicked up such an
unmerciful row down here that at first I
hesitated about wading into the matter
in detail. Bat, why not? They can,
perhaps, take my passports from me; if
they do, it will not be because I did not
tell the truth. Somebody has bl undered
terribly, and it is not the military heads.
Political heada ae short-lived, anyway,
so why not tell the truth? Even politi
cal ambitions would be willingly sacri
Sced, 1 am sure, in this war against "in
humanity" if political heads could but
see and know the seriousness of the
crimes which they re committing.
fy passports can be recalled, but my
BBderstanding and brain and pen can
sot be "muzzled."
Oar soldiers have suffered, are suffer
iag and will suffer a great deal of .'t
quite unnecessarily. They went out
gloriously at the call of the eountrj , for
the country; through politics or igno
rant, goosehead management of men in
political positions tney have ibeen push
ed into such horrible straits' that man
hood and courage are being crushed out
of them before they have fired a bullet
for"inbuman".ty." All because we have
is this country two political factions and
an ignorant public to ask why we do not
thrash at once a few unruly Spaniards
and ead the war. An ignorant public,
worked up to this meddling pitch in the
face of the coming fall elections, are
asking that 150,000 well-trained and
weU-seasoBed Spanish aoldiera be anni
hilated by an undisciplined army of raw
recruits, and wear trying to do what
they ask, because next November we
mast answer politically. War for in
hamanity! We could have furnished
food in a number of waya through the
summer to the starving reconcentradoes,
and bavj been prepared for war by fall.
It was criminal to send our men into
these southern mobilizing camps. They
skoald have been equipped, drilled and
made ready before coming. They should
have been prepared at camps and army
posts where there was an opportunity
for thorough and systematic work. The
country and its facilities here at Tampa
were swamped completely by the ava.
laache of men to be taken care of and no
one to do it.
The regular arxy in its original num
bers, established as it had been for
years, was in a way ready for war.
For the expansion of 23,000 men or
whatever was Ike exact number of our
regular army into 60,000 there was no
preparation and the regular army re
craita have had to suffer with the rest,
barring the great advantage of being in
the care of experienced oScers. Gener
al Miles and hi staff, General Shatter
aad h staff, General Coppinger and his
tat and ivery military man of experi
ence, if they would but talk, would tell
ycu of the alsughter it must mean to
oar army to seed it into Cuba at this
time of the year, even if they were well
eawiied and well drilled. Think what
it means to send against Spanish fight
era men who cannot properly hold a gan
aad know less about firing them; men
dressed ia any old thing, who do not un
derstand military tactics aa well aa any
cheras girl understands the Amazon
starch. Tetasra like this are to fight
far humanity aad America'a honor. In
the larding of our transports in Cuba
we have simply added to inhumanity
We are as brutal in our way aa the
Spaniards are in theirs. Every military
man will tell you that to make success
ful this war of ours from the military
standpoint, equipment and drilling
should have been done before the mov
ing of this great army. Even our best
generals have not been used to handling
such large bodies of men since the civil
war, and there were not, at a moment's
notice, facilities for it, even though in
their military attainment and education
our generals do not need the practical
experience.
What have politics done? Tumbled
raw recruits. Beige trains, provision
trains, regular army, volunteer army and
aupplies into this God-forsaken little
sand point at the tail end of America.
The railroad track for fifty miles back
was loaded up with provisions and the
rest of it, with no numbers, no invoices,
no head to unload or to find anything.
What could be the result with thou
sands of men needing those supplies?
The result was this: Our soldiers, our
grand American men, our sons of this
wealthy country, when under the pro
tection of the country, had to beg, actu
ally beg for food to keep body and soul
together. You can talk about not fur
nishing cologne, Turkish baths, ice
cream and charlotte russe for war ra
tions, but those boys were awfully hun
gry. And some of them are yet.
Why, men of the political cabinet, it
was your sons, my sons, your fathers,
my father, your brothers, my brothers,
who have had to do this begging. Can
you imagine your proud boy asking me
for ten cents with which to buy food?
He did it To be sure, you sent him
money, but he did not get it. Our
poetoffices, too, were swamped in the
avalanche. If it was not, literary, your
boy and my boy who was hungry it was
somebody's boy.
On the bridge that crosses the river I
one day met a great manly, brawny fel
low. He wore the soldier blue. I love it. I
looked at him 1 suppose with the kind
ness I felt in my heart showing in my
face. He half stopped, wholly, stopped,
and then turned pale to the lips with
some kind of a mental struggle. I
waited, He said finally:
Would you would you loan give
me ten cents?
As the words were finally out of his
mouth the red blood came surging over
his face. He realized that-he had actu
ally begged. My tears came, and as I
opened my pocketbook I, too, blushed.
It was so embarrassing. He acted as if
now that it had all escaped him he pre
ferred to run away and not take it. I
tried to laugh it off as if I were senti
mentally giving him a flower for a mas
cot. He said:
"It ia not that but I am sick for the
want of food. For various reasons I am
out of money. 1 cannot swallow the
greasy pork any more. To hare to live
on hard tack and pork, meal after meal,
means after a time starvation by another
name. This morning my stomach re
volted. The thought of it sickens me
now and he grew pale again.
I gave him some money, of course,
more than he asked for how he hated
to take it! Whet I insisted upon it and
then refused to give him my name so
that he might return it his own lip
quivered and he said:
"If it were not that I don't want my
mother to know I would write to her
about you. I will take it and hunt up
some of the other boys and divide it
with them; they are sick, too." Then he
asked wistfully, "Do you thick we will
get used to it all?"
I would nut ask him his name cor his
regiment. I did not want to know. I
might want to write of it, and I, too, did
not want his mother to know that her
boy, under the protection of Uncle Sam,
had been reduced to such distress. This
is only one instance. I have been asked
several times for ten or fifteen cents with
which to buy food, and I am not the
kind of woman to allow sentiment to
blind or to run away with sense.
Our boys have been hungry, and have
lived for weeks and are still living on
field rations. The women of Tampa
hare kept open house and fed our sol
diers whenever they have been asked,
which has been constantly. Field ra
tions, pork and beans, pork without
beans, hard tack and black coffee three
times a day in this hot climate, ssaeoned
with Tampa odors, are not the things
with which to go into training to build
up muscle and strength. The heat
alone is enervating and devitalizing.
Our men are exhausted before getting a
taste of actual warfare. How mut,h
worse is it going to be in Cuba at this
time of year? And yet we expect to
win in this war for inhumanity! I
I thonght so, too, at first I am begin
ning to fear results. Sick soldiers can
not fight
In living here at the end of ten days
with every luxury the loxn affords, I
find myself listless, limp ana forcing
myself into simple duties. The soldiers
almost to a man the 27,000 who left on
transports, and the 19,030 who are still
hore are still sweltering in flannel
shirts and winter clothing, with oulv
promises of duck suits to keep them
cooler. True, they do not become pros
trated with sunstrekee, but they gradu
ally weaken into illness. The flies and
mosquitoe sail around in black clouds.
Think how much woree it is in Cuba!
Battles must be fought. As our wounded
fall Eome correspondent writes: "They
are carried back the allotted ten feet
laid down in the blazing Bun" and
there they are left to the blistering heat
and the flies as the bat:le goes on. The
bullet that kills instantlo will be the
most merciful.
The people of the United States
should rise in a body and demand that
the invasion of Cuba be deferred until
later. To go now is criminal. Havana
will not be fortified mora stronger than
it is already. There can be no doubt
about the climate with its yellow fever
and other diseases, meaning and unholy
slaughter to our grand, good men. It is
gradually showing itself in Tampa. Our
soldiers are fast getting into condition to
take yellow fever and every other cli
matic disease. Our officers all kcow it,
and yet military discipline forbids the
admitting or even the discussion of it
when it will do no good.
I stood yesterday at a side-tracked
train over in Ybor City, where I was
waiting to go through the Pullman cars
which were sent down here thirteen of
them to take the sick soldiers to north
ern hospitals. As one after another of
the soldiers wai carried aboard. I heard
an frmy officer, a surgeon, say to a
couple of local newspaper men: 'There
are no serious cases there is very little
illness.'
Thiatrain, which left last night, was
the first trip of the army hospital train
It will make trips every week, taking
soldiers from the division hospitals and
camps further north', woere the air is
different and conveniences exist, I went
through some of th care and found in
nearly every instance that the boys were
regulars. I call them "boys" they all
seemed so like boys, needing the care of
mother and home. Once in awhile I
came to the delicate face of th ..
w 'VIUU
leer. It was bo easy to distinguish it
It was such a comfort, too. to Bee these
mck soldiers being so well cared for by
our regular army medical corps. They
know how to take care of the soldiers.
Major Richards and his assistant, Cap
tain Stiles, who wore in charge of the
toain.Baid m a few weeks they would
have the tourist cars and every medical
convenience. They take on board no
ISS 0n th train were
--u weeoi typnoid fever, five
of dysentery, one case of malarial fever
one of concumption, many cases of rheu
matism, and ordinary diseases. Fifty
three cases were sent to the train from
General Coppinger's division hospital
others were taken from the camps, about
a hundaed in all. They all looked
those I saw comfortable in clean linen,
clean night shirts, with attendants to
fan them. Some of the typhoid cases
were very serion", but this time they are
all breathing a purer air than this. This
train load went to Fort McPherson, Ga.
Others will go to Fort Thomas, Ky., to
Fort Myer, Va., and to the Leiter Hos
pital at Chickamauga.
BY THE WAY. HOW ABOUT THAT
SUMMER TRIP?
Which way are you going this year?
We want a word with you on the sub
ject. You know its our business to help
you out in plans for a railroad or steam
ship trip and we are always glad to do
eo. But wa need your assurance to
start with. Just tell us where you want
to go and we will furnish you with plans
and specifications in the shape of routes,
rates, time schedules, luxury of equip
ment, etc, etc.
Remember that this year we are more
in the passenger business than ever. If
you doubt this statement please go to
the corner of Ninth and S street and
view our superb now passenger station,
finely appointed and designed for the
convenience and comfort of Elkhcrn-
Northwestern line passengers, and then
when ready to go north, east, south or
west, call on
A. S. Fieldino,
City Ticket Agent. 117 So. Tenth St.
She had just returned from a trip
abroad, and was showing her ffiend the
different curios she bad brought back
with her.
"Now, here is a little thing I got to
remember one place by," she said; "it is
very pretty, isn't it?"
"Charming," replied her friend admir
ingly. "What place was it?"
"Oh, I've forgotten now, we went to so
many places, you know."
Kate I haven't seen Madge of late
Tusy, perhaps.
Nannette Busy, whew! She is bur
ied in work.
Kate What kind?
Nannette Hectographing syndicate
letters. She has twenty-one fiances in
thirteen different regiments.
He wanted a rhyme to Sarsaparilla,
He got it when Dewey took Manila,
He wanted a rhyme to smoky Ohicago,
He got it, of course, in Santiago!
"Why not take this parrot, ma'am?"
asked the dealer. "It talks."
"I want a parrot to talk to and not to
talk back," replied Miss Elder.
"fiow on earth does Brown live now
that he has to pay all his income out in
alimony?"
"His wife allows him a discount for
cash."
Dominie Doesn't your drinking cost
a deal of money?
Jaggs Well cr I believe it must
come hard on my friends once in a
while.
"How did Gudgeon get out of that
suit for breech of promise?"
He put hi wife on the stand and she
sworhthat the other woman was in luck
when she lost him."
tMMIMIIMMHS.'
X Miaa Atine Rl-vet
Jtairdressing, Shampooing,
i AHB
I Scalp Jrcatment. 51 Burr Blk
