Mr. Barker says that from February 15 to March 12 he cared for twelve hundred persons, increasing the number on the relief list after that date to two thousand.
On March 24 Mr. Barker increased his estimate as to the amount of food necessary to keep life in the people of that province. He said that one hundred and fifty tons a month were needful for that time, and that the distress was far greater than his former reports had shown. In the letter of this date he recounts the particulars of a visit to Santa Clara, where, he says, he learned from his own agents and also from the governor of the province that the number of persons in actual want exceeded any estimate which he had previously sent to the government He had said only three days before that he thought twenty tons a month should be added to the eighty tons previously suggested. In a communication of March 20 Mr. Barker says: "The distress is simply heart-rending. Whole families without clothing to hide nakedness are sleeping on the bare ground, without bedding of any kind, without food, save such as we have been able to reach with provisions sent by our own noble people; and the most distressing feature is that fully 50 per cent are ill, without medical attendance or medicine."
SOLDIERS OPPOSE AID.
Mr. Barker adds that if $5,000 could be sent to Consul General
Lee, blankets, cots, and medicines could be purchased in Santa
Clara, and thus save thousands who must die if compelled to await
the sending of these supplies from the United States.
"I have," he says, "found the civil governor willing to lend every aid in his power, but he admits that he can do nothing but assist with his civil officers in expediting relief sent by the United States. The military obstruct in every way possible."
CONSUL HYATT'S REPORT.
Writing on December 5, Mr. Hyatt said: "The reconcentration order is relaxed, but not removed; but many people have reached a point where it is a matter of entire indifference to them whether it is removed or not, for they have lost all interest in the problem of existence. A census of the island taken to-day, as compared with one taken three years ago, I feel confident would show that two-thirds of the residents are missing, and the Spanish army would make no better showing."
On December 14 Mr. Hyatt wrote: "The order of reconcentration practically has been wiped out, and, so far as the Spanish government is concerned, men go about nearly as they please. The insurgents and their sympathizers will unquestionably take advantage of the revocation to get from the towns and cities what they need and otherwise strengthen their cause. The effects on agricultural pursuits will be disappointing, because the great majority of those who would or should take up the work joined the insurgent forces when compelled to leave their homes, and the portion which came within the lines of reconcentration are women, children, old and sickly people, most of whom seem to have little interest in the problem of life. There is no one to take these people back to the fields and utilize their remaining strength. Their houses are destroyed, the fields are overgrown with weeds, they have no seeds to plant, and, if they had, they could not live sixty or eighty days until the crop matured; which, when grown, would more than likely be taken by one or the other of the contending parties."
DYING AT HIS DOOR.
"As I write," Mr. Hyatt closes this communication, "a man is dying in the street in front of my door, the third in a comparatively small time."