A QUEER NEWSPAPER AND AN UGLY BUCK SHEEP

1893 map of Cuba.

Cortland Evening Standard, Wednesday, August 19, 1896.

A QUEER NEWSPAPER.

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE CUBAN PATRIOTIC GOVERNMENT.

Printed Secretly in the Woods and Carried on Muleback to the Army—Has No Advertisers, and Its Circulation Is Free. Its Queer Press.

   The most secret establishment under the patriot government of Cuba is the printing office and pressroom of the Boletin de la Guerra, a little newspaper founded by President Cisneros when the insurrection broke out and published among the hills of Camaguey. No American, except a Journal correspondent, has hitherto visited this curiosity of journalism, nor is any Cuban admitted or even allowed to know where the press is kept without written authorization from the president or minister of war.

   The publishing house is hidden under a thickly wooded mountain in an uninhabited district. You must walk nearly half a mile, most of it up the bed of a little brook, before you reach the clearing and the thatched hut that bears the sign braced on a strip of palm bark in printers' ink "El Boletin de la Guerra."

   The hut is a mere "rancho" of the common type, with a well thatched roof, open on the sides, and with an earthen floor. In the center is the press, an old fashioned machine, fixed on a massive table of rough hewn mahogany. A case for type stands nearby, and on a large bible are stacked paper for future editions, pots of ink, old rollers and an unfiled collection of back numbers.

   The Boletin de la Guerra is a small folio, published biweekly. The setting up and printing are done entirely by the foreman, Antonio Oropeso, a thickset, bearded old man, who was government printer during the last war. He is assisted by his son-in-law, Manuel Guerra, and his nephew, Chicho. When The Boletin goes to press, Antonio adjusts each leaf beneath the sliding rollers, Manuel turns the crank, draws out the freshly printed folio and passes it to the boy Chicho, who folds and stacks the numbers. It is a slow process, but the edition is printed at last and packed off on muleback to be issued along the garces, passed from hand to hand and read by  "mambice" confreres from Oriente to Pinar del Rio.

   The press would excite interest as an antiquity among American printers, but to Antonio Oropeso it is a thing of pride and joy. He sponges its cogs and rollers daily with fragrant oil of the cocoanut and never tires of pointing out its vast superiority for speed, accuracy and elegance over the veteran machine of the last war that was mustered out of service three months ago and now does duty as a cheese press.

   The circulation of The Boletin is about 1,000—more or less copies are struck off, according to the supply of paper. It has no advertiser, and its circulation is free. There are other papers published among the insurgents—The Cuba Libre, La Indepencia and La Estralla, but The Boletin ranks them all as the official organ of the government.—New York Journal.

William McKinley.

AFRO-AMERICANS AT CANTON.

Major McKinley Addresses a Delegation of Colored Men.

   CANTON, O., Aug. 19.—Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, ex-lieutenant governor of New York, accompanied by his wife, lunched with Major McKinley and left for the east. To a reporter he said that New York would surely give McKinley 100,000 plurality and probably the largest ever known for any candidate.

   Major McKinley addressed a delegation of 200 Afro-Americans from Cleveland, headed by one of their race, State Representative Smith.

   Mr. McKinley said:

   "Mr. Smith and my Fellow Citizens: It gives me extreme pleasure to meet and greet this company of rifles and my colored fellow citizens of the city of Cleveland and of Northern Ohio, and I rejoice to learn from your eloquent spokesman that your race this year, as in all the years of the past, stands faithfully to the Republican cause which I believe is the cause of our country. (Applause.)

   "I do not forget—no man can forget—that whether in war or in peace, the race that you represent never turned its back on the glorious old stars and stripes. (Great applause and cries of "Hurrah for McKinley.")

   "I congratulate you, gentlemen, upon the splendid progress that your race has made since emancipation. You have done better, you have advanced more rapidly than it was believed possible at that time; you have improved greatly the educational advantages which you have had. Your people everywhere, North and South, are accumulating property, and today you stand as among the most conservative of the citizens of this great republic. (Applause.) I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart upon the advancement you have already made and I sincerely wish for you and your race, fellow citizens of a common country, the highest realization of your hopes and your prayers. (Great cheering.)

   "We are now engaged in a political contest and your presence in such vast numbers here today evidences the interest which you take in the public questions that are now engaging the attention of the American people. We have a great country and we must keep it great. The post which the United States must occupy both in wages and industry and in the integrity of its finances and currency must be at the head of the nations of the earth. (Loud applause.) To that place of honor the people of the country must restore this year. They have the opportunity that they have wished for since 1892; will they meet it in this year, 1896? (Cries of 'They will.') We want in the United States neither cheap money nor cheap labor. (Great cheering.)

   "Having reduced the pay of labor, it is now proposed to reduce the value of the money in which labor is paid, (laughter and applause.) This money question presents itself to me in this homely fashion: If free coinage of silver means a 53-cent dollar, then it is not an honest dollar. (Applause.) If free coinage means a 100-cent dollar, equal to a gold dollar, as some of its advocates assert, we will not then have cheap dollars, but dollars just like those we now have, and which will be as hard to get. (Applause.) In which case free coinage will not help the debtor nor make it easier for him to pay his debts. (Cries of 'That's right.')

   "My countrymen, the most un-American of all appeals observable in this campaign is the one which seeks to array labor against capital, employer against employed. (Applause.) It is most unpatriotic and is fraught with the greatest peril to all concerned. We are all political equals here—equal in privilege and opportunity, dependent upon each other, and the prosperity of the one is the prosperity of the other. (Great cheering.)

   "I thank you, my fellow citizens, for this call of greetings and congratulations. I thank you for the honor you have conferred upon me in electing me the first honorary member of your organization. I assure you it will give me pleasure to meet you each one personally." (Great cheering.)

Yaqui Indians Vanquished.

   TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 19.—A courier who has just arrived here from Oliver camp states that Troop E, Seventh cavalry, Lieutenant Bullock commanding, had a fight with Yaqui Indians 10 miles south of here. The troops charged them, killing three and capturing the entire band of 30, among whom were three squaws. Three soldiers were wounded, one mortally. The Yaquis were armed with Winchesters, pistols and knives, and were better armed than the military. They will be brought here and turned over to the civil authorities.

Congressman Sereno E. Payne.

POLITICAL SPEECHES.

Rally at Homer Friday Night—Other Meetings in the County.

   Friday night every one is invited to attend a grand sound-money rally at Keator opera house in Homer at which the principal speaker will be Hon. W. W. Hicks of Florida. The meeting will begin at 8 o'clock. The Cortland City band and the Homer drum corps will furnish music.

   Hon. Sereno E. Payne is this afternoon speaking at Cincinnatus and will to-night speak at Freetown.

   It was the intention to have Mr. Payne speak to-morrow afternoon at Virgil, but it has been thought best to postpone the Virgil meeting until later on account of the short time in which to get the notice around. Virgil is a very large town and it is hoped that when the meeting is held every voter in the town can know of it and have an opportunity to attend if he desires to do so. This could hardly be accomplished on so short notice.

AN UGLY BUCK SHEEP.

The Probable Cause of the Supposed Murder at South Otselic.

   The coroner's inquest which sought to ascertain the means by which Lewis Eastman of South Otselic met his death last Saturday has quite thoroughly disposed of the murder theory. It was evident from the appearance of the corpse that violence had been used, though no one had been seen and the remains were found in a pasture within a few rods of the house.

   At the inquest the fact was brought out that an ugly buck sheep was confined in that pasture. The jury declared their verdict that they considered that the death was caused by injuries received from a buck sheep confined in the pasture or by a blow or blows from some blunt instrument in the hands of some person or persons unknown.

BREVITIES.

   —The colored people picnic at Floral Trout park to-morrow afternoon.

   —New advertisements to-day are—F. E. Brogden, quinine hair tonic, page 7.

   —The Cortlands received their second defeat at Norwich yesterday by the score of 12 to 7.

   —Harry Morris's baseball nine defeated the State-st. nine yesterday afternoon 14 to 1.

   —On account of the cool weather the band concert and dance at the park to-night will be omitted.

   —The annual reunion of the Givens family will be held at the home of Wm. Hutchings near Dryden Tuesday, Aug. 25.

   —A wagon, loaded with an anvil weighing 6,500 pounds consigned from Groton to the Cortland Harness & Carriage Goods Co., broke an axle on Groton-ave. near Main-st. this morning.

   —Mr. and Mrs. J. O. Hill very pleasantly entertained about twenty-five invited guests at their home, 88 Tompkins-st. last evening in honor of their guests, Hon. and Mrs. C. A. Hill and daughter Florence of Joliet, Ill.

   —No one should fail to read the remarks published in another column of Hon. Sereno E. Payne in accepting a renomination at the convention at Geneva. He makes a very plain, common sense matter of the financial problem.

   —It is worthwhile to mention that Professor Hubbard, the United States entomologist, says that a cent's worth of cobalt in a dish, thinly covered with water, will suffice to kill all the flies that infest a house through an entire season.

   —Mr. T. P. Button is getting his mouth all ready for a second crop of strawberries this season from his garden patch. A this year's runner which has taken root has five blossoms and there is nothing but an early frost that will prevent the fruit from coming.

   —The American Volunteers will hold regular religious services in the W. C. T. U. rooms Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights in charge of Lieutenant Barber. On Friday night Bandmaster Major Trumbull of the national head quarters at New York will be present.

   —This is a great year for bugs. An exchange says that the 16 to 1 men are silver bugs, the Prohibitionists are water bugs, the woman suffragists are lady bugs, the sound-money men are gold bugs, the mugwumps are humbugs and the potato bugs are eating up all the Paris green.