The news from Spain is meagre, the only item of
moment relates to the arrival at Corunna on Wednesday of the first batch of troops from Cuba. Some of these reached Madrid on Thursday, and their condition is described as "positively ghastly; worse than the Armenians in Turkish prisons." The Daily Chronicle correspondent adds that "the lower classes here [i.e., in Madrid] are deeply, perhaps dangerously, im- pressed." In America, also, it is the condition of the returning soldiers that is chiefly occupying the public mind. The ravages made by disease, and, unfortunately, not merely by disease contracted before Santiago but by disease in camps on American soil, are causing the utmost indignation. General Miles and the chief officers of the Army demand a full and impartial inquiry, and this is being resisted by General Alger and the War Department. The President, not unnaturally, is very unwilling to desert a subordinate under fire, but in the end he will be obliged to grant a Commission of Inquiry. When a grave scandal occurs. in an Anglo-Saxon community it is never possible to resist a popular demand for investigation.
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