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108 prisoners. A sentence of death was promptly pronounced, and would have been quickly carried out, had not our government interfered to prevent the murder of these men, just as the English gunboat "Niobe," Captain Sir Lambton Lorraine, stopped the

feet, stone floors, and dark, and kept in these horrid little holes for days and weeks without being allowed to see and talk with anyone. I told Weyler that, in our country, the law presumed every man innocent until he was proved guilty; but by the Spanish process every man was guilty, and they did not even give him an opportunity to prove his innocence. To which he replied that he had published a proclamation establishing martial law and that the terms of that proclamation superseded the stipulations of the treaty. To this I answered that the terms of treaties between two countries at peace could not be set aside, changed or altered except by the action of one or both of the contracting parties, and that his proclamation was therefore inoperative where its stipulations came in conflict with the treaty mandates.

killing of the "Virginius" prisoners twenty-eight years ago, but unfortunately not until the courageous Fry and some fifty-three of his one hundred and fifty-five men had been shot.

I earnestly and vigorously protested against the arrest of these American citizens, telling General Weyler that it was in violation of the treaty and protocol between Spain and the United States, which, in my opinion, limited the confinement "incomunicado" to seventy- two hours. "Incomunicado" is a Spanish term meaning literally without communication. And these Americans, without any charges against them that I could ascertain, without warning, and without the knowledge of their friends and relatives, were arrested and thrown into these little "incomunicado" cells, about eight by ten

The situation, however, remained unchanged until finally Dr. Ruiz, an American dentist who was practicing his profession in a town called Guanabacoa, some four miles from Havana, was arrested. A rail-road train between Havana and this town had been captured by the insurgents, and the