The _Competitor_ prisoners have just landed in this country. The stories
they tell of the hardships they endured and the cruelties practised on
them are heartrending.

They declare that they were condemned to death without a hearing, and
were forced to choose a Spaniard to defend them at the mockery of a
trial which they were given.

This man laughed when they told him they were not guilty, and never
opened his lips to plead for them, or to ask that they be allowed to
make their own statements.

When they had been adjudged guilty he offered a half-hearted plea for
mercy.

They were so shockingly treated and so badly fed while in jail that they
have come back mere shadows of their former selves, and weak, lame, and
maimed.

* * * * *

The result of the Cuban election has at last been made known, but we
find that the new president is not Capote after all, but Bartolome Maso.

The election should have taken place on the 2d of September, but owing
to the absence of several delegates it did not occur until early in
November.

Señor Mendez Capote presided over the meetings, and it was probably this