THE STANDARD GUIDE. 
58 
set in a fragment of the wall of the old Commissary Building, which stood 
here in the days when Havana was full of Spanish troops. When the 
building was demolished by the Americans, in the general rearrangement 
and parking of the land around the Punta, this bit was preserved as a 
fitting memorial of one of the tragic incidents in Havana’s history. The 
ground in front of the wall was a place of public execution; it was here 
that certain students of the University of Havana were sacrificed to the 
animosity of the Spanish Volunteers. 
It was the rule in Cuba that all offices—civil, military and ecclesiastic— 
were filled by Spaniards born in Spain. Even the Cuban-born sons of 
Spanish parents were disqualified from holding office. The children of the 
first generation were counted Cubans, not Spaniards; the old saying ran, 
“A Spaniard can do anything in Cuba except raise a Spaniard son.” The 
natives of Spain were called Peninsulars; the natives of Cuba Insulars, 
and the feeling between the two was bitter. The Peninsulars organized 
themselves into a militia corps of volunteers (Instituto de los Volunterios 
de Cuba) commonly known as “Spanish Volunteers,” answering to the 
National Guard of the United States. In 1872 the Corps numbered 80,000 
men. Their duties were to guard towns and public property, suppress dis¬ 
order, and when occasion demanded to fight Cuban insurgents. In 1871, 
when the Ten Years’ War (1868-78) was in progress, there was printed 
in Havana a paper called “La Voz de Cuba,” the “Voice of Cuba.” Its 
editor, Gonzalo Castanon, a Colonel of the Volunteers, published some 
derogatory remarks concerning Cuban women. The calumny aroused 
intense indignation among the outraged Cubans. Castanon was chal¬ 
lenged to fight a duel, and in an encounter with a Cuban was killed, and 
was buried in one of the dove-cote like tombs of the Espada Cemeterv. 
A party of students of the Medical School of the University of Havana 
were one day visiting the cemetery, and while near the tomb of Castanon. 
one of them said something which reflected upon the dead Colonel of 
Volunteers. A Spanish soldier overheard the remark, and repeated it to 
a Spanish judge, with a further accusation that the students had defaced 
the glass which closed the Castanon tomb. Forty-three of the students 
were arrested, charged with the offense, and brought to trial before a court 
martial. They were defended by a Spanish officer, Capdevilla, and by his 
eloquence and the clear evidence of their innocence, were acquitted. The 
result of the trial enraged the Volunteers, and they obtained from the 
Captain-General an order for the assembling of a second court manual, 
two-thirds of the members of which should be Volunteers. The boys were 
a second time arrested and a second time put in jeopardy of their lives. 
After a trial which was a farce, all the accused were declared guilty. Eight 
of them, mere boys, the oldest sixteen years, were chosen by lot to be shot. 
The rest were sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor. The father of one 
of the boys condemned to death, who possessed an immense fortune, in 
