How would you, reader, like to be shut off, with no means of subsistence, for yourself, your wife and your children, within military lines, to cross which meant instant death?
The Butcher could not conquer this valiant people in honorable warfare, and therefore, worthy scion of his blood, he, without one qualm of conscience, determined to exterminate them. Young boys, not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age, were charged with the crime of "rebellion and incendiarism" (that was the favorite charge of Weyler), and sometimes with the pretence of a trial, sometimes with no trial at all, were shot down in cold blood by the score. Poor little starving babies clung to their mothers' breasts from which no substance was to be obtained. Weyler knew all this, and in his palace in Havana simply laughed, content so long as each day the death rate of the Cubans increased, and he himself was gaining favor with his government, and meanwhile had all that he wanted to eat and drink.
The merciless wretch, by the way, was ever careful not to expose his own precious person to bullet or machete.
But what could be expected of him? He was a Spaniard, a man after Spain's own heart, and one whom it was her delight to honor.
This picture is not over-painted. The colors if anything are laid on too thin.
Although the so-called rebels were not conquered and never could be conquered, Weyler was constantly sending reports home of the "pacification" of first this and then that portion of the island. This he probably supposed was necessary to placate the Spaniards, who are divided amongst themselves and ever ready to rise against the existing government whatever it may be.
In spite of all this, brute Weyler has been and still is the idol of a certain class of Spaniards. In spite of all? No, we should have said, because of all.
One of his adherents, among other things, said to Stephen Bonsal, and this is the sort of utterance that the majority of Spain applauds:
"The only way to end this Cuban question is the way General Weyler is going about it. The only way for Spain to retain her sovereignty over these islands is to exterminate—butcher if you like—every man, woman and child upon it who is infected with the contagion and dreams of Cuba Libre. These people must be exterminated and we consider no measure too ruthless to be adopted to secure this end.
"I read in an American paper the other day that General Weyler was poisoning the streams from which the insurgents drink in Matanzas province. It was not true, but I only wish it had been.