Mr. Calhoun has returned from his mission in Cuba, but we must wait a few days before we can expect to hear the results.
A report, however, comes from Havana, that one hundred citizens of Matanzas have sent an appeal for help to our Government, and have based it on the misery which they say Mr. Calhoun and General Lee saw with their own eyes.
They speak in a most pitiable way of the hunger
and privations suffered by the people who have been driven into the towns; from the description given in the paper, these poor souls are now so thin and weak that they can hardly drag themselves through the streets to beg for bread. They tell of poor little children dying of starvation in the streets, of the sufferings of the poor parents who cannot get food to keep life in their little ones' bodies, and of this crowd of suffering, starving people, wandering homeless through the streets begging for the charity which no one can spare them.
The paper in which this is set forth is brought to a close with an earnest appeal to the United States to send food to the Cubans for the sake of humanity. The people say that Spain has been deaf to their appeals, and their only hope is in us.
It is dreadful to think that such distress is being endured at our very doors, and that we are powerless to prevent it.
It is no easy thing to be the President at such a time as this. Mr. McKinley must be full of sympathy for these unhappy people, and yet his first duty is toward the nation he has been chosen to govern; and he dare not aid the starving Cubans, if by so doing he would bring the horrors of war upon the people he has sworn to protect.
The war in the Philippine Islands seems to be raging as fiercely as ever.
A report comes from Manila that the widow of Dr. Rizal has gathered a company of soldiers together, and is leading them against the Spaniards herself. She has already won two victories, it is said.