Opinion in the United States is growing rather hot about
Cuba. So far as we can asoertain, while there is a party favourable to annexation, the general inclination is not towards that policy. There is even a certain dislike towards the inclusion of more blacks, more half-castes, and more Catholics within the Union. The true wish is that the Spanish Monarchy should be replaced in Cuba by a Republic, and this wish is sharpened by a belief that -General Weyler, whatever his promises of moderation,
415 will, in fact, be cruel. He is about, it is asserted, to -declare all the insurgents "bandits," which means that be will bang them when taken prisoner, and this re- solve, which will make the war one of extermination, irritates the American peace party almost as much as the -Jingoes. If the threat is truly reported, the United States will remonstrate energetically, and war may follow, the Spanish Government being not only a proud one, but influenced by an unacknowledged feeling that defeat by the Government of Washington would conceal their own blunder- ing and incapacity. The force they have in the island is positively greater than the whole force with which they used to hold all Spanish America.
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