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| Syracuse, N. Y. and Erie Canal. |
Cortland Semi-Weekly Standard, Tuesday, July 26, 1898.
POPULATION OF SYRACUSE
By his census for directory purposes, Andrew Boyd gives the population of Syracuse in 1898 as 124,853. With 10,000 estimated for the immediate suburbs, the total population that can be called for a circus parade or fireworks is about 134,853. Compared for the last five years, the city’s population runs thus: In 1893 the city numbered 105,202, an increase of 5,023 over the preceding year; in 1894, 111,268, an increase of 6,066; in 1895, 116,564, an increase of 5,296; in 1896, 120,124, an increase of 5,560; in 1897, 122,653, an increase of 2,520; 1898, 124,853, an increase of 2,200.
The foreign population is given as follows: 8,900 are from Germany; 6,625 Ireland; 5,000, Italy; 2,700, England; 2,500, Canada; 1,000, Russia; 400, Norway; 1,500, Poland; 400, Scotland; 210, Switzerland; 300, France; 150, Austria; 90, Sweden; 75, Denmark; 50, Hungary; 30, China. About 1,000 are colored people.
Other bits of knowledge to be gained by a directory canvass are as follows: Syracuse is the fifth largest city in New York state in point of population. [It] ranks as the twenty-sixth largest city in the Union. Number of families in the city, 27,517. Number of houses in the city about 19,000. Number of school children (5 to 21 years), 27,400. Number of public schools, thirty-two; teachers, 393. Number of business firms in the city, 5,670. Number of voters about 24,000.
The cost for new buildings, additions, etc., in the city and adjoining suburbs during 1897, $2,122,777. The total consideration in real estate transactions, $1,424,413.The size of the city is five by four and one-half miles. There are about 600 streets.
The product of our manufacturing industries, wholesale, jobbing and retail trade, is over $75,000,000 yearly. The assessed valuation of real estate is $64,950,956, and personal 12,860,547.
There are 118 churches and missions with a seating capacity of about 43,345. There are thirteen banks. The street railways aggravate more than sixty miles of track. The death rate of the city is based upon our census by the registrar of vital statistics and is thirteen per 1,000.
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| Gen. Calixto Garcia. |
CUBANS WERE ROUTED.
Attacked the Spaniards Who Had Surrendered to Gen. Shafter.
NEW YORK, July 23.—A dispatch to The Herald from Santiago, via Port Antonio, Jamaica, says: Great excitement was caused in Santiago to-day (Thursday) by a story that 4,000 Cuban insurgents composing General Garcia’s army for the eastern department of Cuba, were routed in a fierce engagement with a detachment of Spanish troops bound for Santiago to surrender. In this battle, which took place at a point several miles to the north of this city, forty-one Cubans were killed, the Cubans say, and many more wounded. The Spanish loss, it is said, was much smaller.
There were about 5,000 Spaniards in the body, according to the report, and they drove Garcia’s men into full retreat a few hours after the battle began.
The Cubans and Spaniards met on the road between Santiago and Holquin. The Spaniards, it is said, had been gathered from the fortified towns in the vicinity and were proceeding to Santiago under the terms of surrender agreed to by General Toral. They were seeking to carry out in good faith the agreement made with General Shafter. They were not looking for a fight and were caught off guard.
General Garcia, it is said, ordered his men to form so that they would be concealed in the chaparral, hoping to annihilate the first section of Spanish troops. His plans were promptly put into execution, but the Spaniards quickly recovering from demoralization caused by the opening shots fought fiercely and General Garcia’s ambuscade was a failure.
Although unsuccessful in his plan to trap the Spaniards, General Garcia, according to the Cubans who brought the story, sent word to them demanding they surrender forthwith. To this demand the Spanish commander returned an emphatic refusal. “General Toral,” he notified General Garcia, “has surrendered to the American army, not to the Cubans.”
Despite the information that these Spanish troops were a part of those included in General Toral's surrender, General Garcia is said to have ordered his troops to prepare to fight. The Cubans quickly took the positions to which they had been assigned and the order to fire was passed along the line. General Garcia had decided, it is said, to attempt to carry the Spanish position by assault and his troops pressed forward when the word was given. Their progress was firmly resisted at every point by the Spaniards, who after several hours fighting put the Cubans to rout with a loss of forty-one killed and many wounded. The Spanish suffered a smaller loss.
This story of battle and its disastrous results has greatly excited the Cubans. They are demanding vengeance and cannot understand why the Americans do not annihilate their Spanish prisoners of war.
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIALS.
Unwise Conduct of the Cubans.
It is impossible to understand the conduct of the Cubans under General Garcia at Santiago. If they are engaged in a contest for freedom from Spanish despotism and cruelty, they should be among the first to oppose any course that duplicates the conduct of their oppressors. But is the dispatches from Santiago are to be credited, they are bitterly disappointed because General Shafter has refused to hand the city over to them for pillage. In fact they resent his refusal to such a degree that “there is,” to quote the words of the dispatches, “practically no communication at all between the two armies, and their relations border on those of hostility rather than relations which one would suppose to exist between allies.”
When Cuban General Castillo asked why the city was to be left in the hands of the enemies of the Cubans, General Shafter made a reply worthy of an American engaged in a noble cause. “The Spaniards are not our enemies,” he said. “We are fighting the soldiers of Spain; but we have no desire to despoil her citizens.” To pursue such a course or to permit the Cubans to do so would bring upon us a greater odium even than attaches to the conduct of the Spaniards. Not only would it show that we are barbarians like them, but that we are in addition much greater hypocrites. At no time have they ever pretended to show any considerable deference to the feelings of humanity.
It seems that General Shafter’s refusal was based upon what he had already seen. Such at least is a justifiable inference from another statement made in the dispatches. “It was evident,” they say, describing the effect of General Shafter’s reply, “that the Cubans were greatly disappointed at the step taken by the American commander, for they had confidently counted upon having Santiago turned over to them to loot and plunder as they had in succession sacked Baiquira, Sibony and El Caney.” If those towns were treated in any such manner, General Shafter did not any too soon bring his Cuban allies up with a round turn. A repetition of their conduct in Santiago, a city many times larger and vastly more wealthy than those towns, would have brought down upon us the execration of the whole civilized world.
According to the same dispatches the Cubans have failed in other respects to meet expectations. They have refused to help build roads, holding that such work is unworthy of soldiers. They have even refused to cut poles for improvised litters to carry the wounded from the field of battle. In view of these facts, we can readily believe that the feeling among the American soldiers towards them has changed from cordiality to contempt. “Very rarely,” we are told, “is a kind word spoken of them.”
We are told further that “in some quarters there is a disposition to prophesy an early collision between our men and the Cubans.” The dispatches from Washington show that the government is apprehensive of trouble with them. “It begins to appear,” they say, “that for some time to come and even after the conquest of Cuba, the United States must maintain there a military government in order to meet the responsibilities which it has assumed to the civilized world.”
BREVITIES.
—Dog days began Monday,
—Auburn now claims a population of about 32,000.
—Rev. John T. Stone will preach at South Cortland on Friday evening, July 29.
—The STANDARD is indebted to Mr. James Stafford for some extra fine red raspberries.
—Mr. Jeptha Branch of Blodgett Mills died Friday at that place. The funeral was on Sunday.
—The Y. M. C. A. juniors in camp at Tully lake expect to break camp on Wednesday and return home.
—The dear girls are happy because they don’t have to stick stamps on their ice cream soda.—Ithaca Journal.
—The mothers’ meeting, north, will be held with Mrs. Theodore Schiele, 7 Halbert-st., Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock.
—The Cortland Terriers won at base ball at Killawog Saturday by the score of 8 to 6. The Terriers expect to play at Moravia some day this week.
—The carts of the Orris and Emerald Hose companies are again back in the hose buildings, having been fitted with new wheels, repainted and restriped.
—The office of Dr. C. D. VerNooy, the market of Frazier & Bouck and the office of L. N. Hopkins, florist, have been connected with the telephone exchange.
—In the big firemen’s parade Aug. 4, the line of march will extend the entire length of Church and North Church-sts., and counter march on the same streets.
—There were fifty-one people from Cortland who started at 6 o’clock Sunday morning for the two days’ trip over the Lehigh Valley R. R. to Niagara Falls.
—Preparations for the decorations of the streets for the Fireman’s convention are already progressing. The carpenter work of some of the large arches is already well advanced.
—Binghamton is raising by subscription a fund to provide that none of the families of any of the men who went to the front, in that city, should be in any need. About $2,000 has been raised.
—A pleasant family reunion took place at the residence of Mustapha Mathewson on Saturday, July 23. Representatives of the family relatives were present from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, Worcester, Mass., McDonough, N. Y. and Cortland, N. Y.
—We publish at the head of the brevity column to-day a poem “Our Country’s Flag” written Sunday afternoon by Rev. G. H. Brigham, the suggestion for it springing from the flag presentation at the First Baptist church Sunday morning.
—We publish in another column to-day a letter from Mr. Harry A. Oday, who is a member of Company C, Third N. Y. Volunteer infantry, now stationed at Camp Alger, and it will undoubtedly be read with great interest by his many friends in this vicinity.
—M. L. Munson Friday moved his family to Little York and will for the summer occupy the upper part of Dr. E. M. Santee’s boathouse which has been finished off as a cottage. Mr. Munson will have charge of the doctor’s naphtha launch which already has excited so much admiration on the part of visitors at Little York.
—The Cornell University Law school has promptly recognized the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by removing from among the law reports of foreign countries the reports of the supreme courts of Hawaii, and also placing them on the shelves in their alphabetic place between the reports of the supreme courts of Georgia and Idaho.—Ithaca Journal.
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| Camp Alger, Va. "Colored troops in skirmish drill." |
ROUTINE LIFE AT CAMP ALGER.
Letter from Harry Oday of the Third New York Volunteers.
Our own little camp consisting of the three regiments of New York and the Third of Missouri, including our drill ground, covers twenty acres and is entirely surrounded by woods. One curious fact in regard to these two regiments is that during the Civil war the Third of New York and the Third of Missouri fought against one another over the same ground they now occupy.
The officers’ tents are in the woods, and the men spend all the time when not in drill or cleaning up, lying in the cool shade—some days we need shade, for instance when the thermometer registers 117 degrees in the tent and 130 degrees on the drill ground. We are used to this now, so do not mind it as much as at first.
The officers sleep one and two in a tent 12 feet square. The enlisted men occupy circular tents 16 1/2 feet in diameter, sixteen in a tent, but as one’s wardrobe is very limited he has plenty of room.
At mess time the men line up in single file with tin plate and cup and march to the cooking tent, where they are given their food, which is plain, hearty and good enough for any man doing hard out door work.
We get up at 5:30 A. M. and turn in at 9:30 P. M. We have four drills a day, making a total of six hours’ drill work. Sundays there is nothing to do but eat, sleep and write letters.
The men of each regiment are confined within their own lines and the poor individual caught outside without a pass will spend the next day digging trenches, culling wood, or something equally hard.
There are many hucksters’ stands and wagons around, so we are able to buy anything we have the money to pay for.
There is a Y. M. C. A. tent with each regiment. These are supplied with long tables, benches, etc. The secretary furnishes paper free for all, hence the most of our letter writing is done in the tents.
The main topic of conversation in camp is “When are we going to move?” No one is very particular where, yet all want to leave here. For the last week the papers have had much concerning our regiment going to Porto Rico but we have not received orders to go. This morning we had regimental inspection by a regular army inspector. Last Monday we had brigade inspection. These two things, coupled with the fact that our surgeon is daily giving instruction as to helping and caring for the wounded on the field, makes me believe that we are soon to go to the front.
Camp Alger is a much more healthy place than the newspapers give it credit for, it is on high, dry ground, in fact 450 feet higher than Washington. The water is obtained from wells which are anywhere from 100 to 200 feet deep, the water being clear, cold and pure.
One man at a time in each company is allowed a five days’ furlough to go home. Two men from a company are daily allowed passes to Washington, and there are few who have not “done” the Capital, some to their sorrow.
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