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"Look!" Jacket clutched at O'Reilly and pointed a shaking finger "More beggars! Cristo! And those little children!" The boy tried to laugh, but his voice cracked nervously "Are they children, or gourds with legs under them?"

O'Reilly looked, then turned his eyes away He and Jacket had reached the heart of Matanzas and were facing the public square, the Plaza de la Libertad it was called O'Reilly knew the place well; every building that flanked it was fa Governor's Palace to the ornate Casino Espanol and the Grand Hotel, and time hen he had been a welcos were different now Gone were the custoone the rows of carriages which at this hour of the day ont to circle the Plaza laden with the aristocracy of the city; gone was that air of cheerfulness and substance which had lent distinction to the place Matanzas appeared poor and squalid, depressingly wretched; its streets were foul and the Plaza de la Libertad--gri such as it had never held in O'Reilly's tiaunt, listless, ragged There was no afternoon parade of finery, no laughter, no noise; the benches were full, but their occupants were silent, too sick or too weak tochildren There were, to be sure, vast nuures in the square, but one needed to look twice to realize that they were not pyge that Jacket had cos, for all were naked, and most of them had bodies swollen into the likeness of pods or calabashes They looked peculiarly grotesque with their spidery legs and thin faces

O'Reilly passed a damp hand across his eyes "God!" he breathed "She--she's one of these!"

He had not penetrated even thus far into the city without receiving a hint of what conditions hts and smelled odors that had sickened him; but now that he was face to face with the worst, now that he breathed the very breath of misery, he could scarcely credit what he saw A stench, indescribably nauseating, assailed hiled with the crowd, for as yet their nostrils were unused to poverty and filth It was the rancid odor that arises from unwashed, unhealthy bodies, and it testified eloquently to the living-conditions of the prisoners Hollow eyes and hopeless faces followed the t-co