up large numbers of Cubans and put them to work cleaning up the streets, and the prospects for cleanliness are better.  I don’t believe, however, that the Cuban and Spanish residents will profit by it unless they are absolutely compelled to avoid throwing rubbish in the streets.  They have no cellars and no sewers.  The people themselves have very little regard for the ordinary proprieties of civilized life and children run stark naked on the streets.

The following letter has been received from Claude Neis of Company G, First District of Columbia volunteers: 

Santiago de Cuba, Aug. 9, 1898.

You said that Mr. Balcke’s son was killed in Santiago.  If so, I must say that I saw his ghost on the wayside in a cluster of woods.  I remember seeing the name.  His first name was Charley, if I am not mistaken.  I feel very sorry to have heard of his death, but I know that he perished for a noble cause and fought gallantly as any soldier could.

Lon White is all right, and this trip is doing him a great deal of good, only he has had an attack of malarial fever lately.  It seems to affect all the boys, and if they do not take us out of this place, since peace is virtually declared, we all will have a harder fight to contend with the yellow fever than we had with the Spaniards.  It has already broken out among several regiments and we have lost two men already.

Last Friday the First battalion was ordered to guard the Spanish prisoners, 7,000 in number, and my four days’ expedition with them has made me conceive very readily that they are superior to what I expected.  I made friends with Captain Garcia, a very fine-looking man and a very gentle sort of a fellow.  We were forbidden to talk, receive or give anything from or to them, but a soldier in these circumstances disobeys a minor order like that, I was invited to take dinner with the captain and his two lieutenants, Menez and Hernandez, two very nice sort of Spaniards.  Though prisoners, they are more cordial than our own officers.  The bill of fare and manner of eating was as follows: 

1.  Bean soup with rice, well seasoned with pepper a la Mexicano. 2.  Fish, with the best sauce ever tasted since I left home. 3.  Fried eggs and potatoes. (Eggs in the market here are 10 cents apiece.) After each intermission a glass of claret wine. 4.  Rice and roast meat a la Francaise. 5.  Rice pudding. 6.  Coffee (Francaise), bread and butter. 7.  Fruit.  Glass of good Spanish rum a la rhum.

I have quite a few souvenirs from them and some Spanish buttons for sister.

We are situated on top of a mountain while the Spaniards are down in the valley.  They bring quite a number of sick people out every morning.  I have even become so acquainted with the men of the—­ battalion, Captain Garcia commanding, that they call me Senor Neis.  I have named one, who is the real picture of an Irishman of the Mick type, “Mickey,” and his comrades call him such.  They carry my water for me and seem to be willing to do anything I ask them.  The majority of them are very illiterate, very few intelligent privates, comparatively speaking.  I have a young fellow about my age to teach English, and I am attempting Spanish.  Both of us are getting along fairly well.  I can make myself understood.