We consider it a duty and take a special pleasure in manifesting our appreciation of the efficiency displayed by your whole staff in these days, and of the energy with which they discharged the vessel, carted and stored the cargo; and proceeded with its distribution; and can only congratulate them on the result of their labors and yourself on being at the head of such a well-organized corporation.
In the very important items of directing the relief to be given into proper channels and keeping it out of improper ones, your committee had at the commencement an easy task, for the reasons already explained, the whole city being in want, by simply giving to all that applied, and in the first days that was what was done, so much so that three-fourths, more or less, of the entire community received some assistance.
But after the first ten days it began to be evident that the strain was removing. Cargoes of provisions for sale had arrived and were being retailed. The government were employing quite a number of workmen on and around the wharves at high wages, and some few workmen were moving out to the country. It behooved then the committee to be more conservative in admitting lists of applicants for rations, and this necessity was accentuated by complaints which began to arise of the difficulty of getting people to work, complaints which became general extending from the governor of the city who could not find workmen even at good wages, to clean the streets of the city, to the heads of households who found no one to cook, serve or wash, while such important minor industries, as the supplying of the city with charcoal or even firewood, were almost wholly abandoned.
SANTIAGO REFUGEES AT EL CANEY,
Where it is estimated that twelve thousand people were fed with Red Cross supplies before the surrender of Santiago.
ESTABLISHING HEADQUARTERS ASHORE.