Awful Butcheries

Key West, Fia., Oct. 6.- Butcheries on an awful scale are being perpetrated nightly in Havana, according to a letter received here f rom one of the most reliable correspondents in the Cuban capital. Chief of Pólice La Barrera, who was said to have been appointed because of his brutal nature by Weyler, is responsible for the butcheries, it is stated. La Barrera's office corresponds to colonel of the army, but no colonel would accept the ofnce under the conditions of cruelty iraposed by Weyler. Bvery night at police headquarters prisoners are taken out and put on the books as released. These individuals are guarded by one "celador" - pólice delégate - and two policemen, taken between 1 and 3 a. m. to a landing place at the entrance of the harbor, two blocks from the pólice headquarters. Once there the prisoners and three policemen step in a boat and start off: they don't land anywhere, but after awhile the offlcers come back without the prisoners. This action has been watched night after night. From the lst of September to the 30th, eighty-three prisoners have disappeared in this way. Five were drowned on the night of Sept. 26. From the Cabanas and Morro Castle prisoners are taken out and drowned in the same way. The reason they are taken out of the harbor is on account of the number of sharks, which get hold of the bodies and leave no trace. The families of offlcers living in Morro Castle and the Cabanas have made a complaint of the lamentations they hear late in the night. The cries are attributed to prisoners being drowned. La Barrera has five men under arrest on suspicion of putting a dynamite bomb under a gas main. They are kept at the pólice station and tortured to make them confess. The torture consists of feeding them with dry codfish and not allowing them any water. No other food is allowed, and they die of starvation if they refuse to eat the salt cod. This is said to be the means employed by Weyler in Barcelona, and it is said it never failed to produce the desired effect.