10 



THE CUBA REVI E W 



Ten or more lives were 

 Storm in lost and property worth more 

 Pinar del T^/o.than $2,000,000 was de- 

 stroyed in the tornado which 

 swept over the Province of Pinar del Rio, 

 September 17. Communication between 

 Havana and the storm area in the western 

 part of the province was cut ofT except at 

 two or three points. 



More than 2,000 persons were made home- 

 less, several hundred houses, herb and to- 

 bacco barns blown down, and many acres 

 of tobacco seed beds on which the crop de- 

 pends destroyed. Roads in course of con- 

 struction were ruined, bridges swept away 

 and telegraph wires broken. 



President Gomez called a special session 

 of Congress on September 24 to devise re- 

 lief measures. He himself contributed $500 

 to a fund for the relief of those made 

 homeless. 



At the special session of the 

 Relief Cuban Congress, called by the 

 Measures. President, September 24, the 

 Senate passed a bill placing 

 with banks the sum of $700,000 for three 

 years, without interest, to be loaned to far- 

 mers, land owners, tobacco growers, etc., 

 in Pinar del Rio, who may have suffered 



from the last cyclone, at a rate not higher 

 than three per cent. 



The Senate also passed an appropriation 

 bill of $100,000 for public works in the 

 desolated towns and $50,000 for tobacco 

 seed to be distributed among the farmers. 



The House on September 28 amended the 

 Senate bill raising to $1,000,000 the amount 

 appropriated for the benefit of the sufferers 

 by the recent cyclone. The Senate rejected 

 the amendment and the discussion ended on 

 September 30 by Congress appropriating 

 $75,000 on strong intimation that President 

 Gomez would veto any bill appropriating 

 any very large sum. The session lasted a 

 week and adjourned October 1. The dam- 

 age done by the storm has been hugely ex- 

 aggerated. 



The brig San Antonio, which was beached 

 upon a mud shoal off Punta Castle, Ha- 

 vana Harbor, when she sprang a leak early 

 in September, after striking the rocks of the 

 "Doce Apostoles" as she was attempting the 

 port without a pilot, sank to the bottom on 

 September 22. The vessel now offers no 

 danger to traffic because that part of the 

 channel is of great depth and port pilots 

 say that the channel is unobstructed. 



Solidaridad cubana. A vuelta abajo 1— La Discusion, Havana. 

 Cuban Solidarity. To Vuelta Abajo! 



