Cuba has been on the altar for sacrifice several years. The United States have been looking for some time toward the event of its severance from Spain, when it would gravitate toward her for protection. The present movement is being made because the people have no voice in their own government; they are overburdened with taxes to support declining royalty from Spain, for the purpose of making laws and administering them. Would an embassy of Americans, with authority from Washington, be more acceptable to the Cubans than their present rulers? Does our administration now evince that efficiency, justice, and prowess to protect the unprotected, and strengthen the weak, which would encourage a feeble foreign principality to seek an asylum beneath the "stars and stripes," where a shelter free from discord and contention could be furnished as a refuge in times of danger? Does not the successful warfare in which it has been engaged for a number of years indicate the first fundamental principles of self-government and defense? How terrible the fate of all insurgents when captured, at the sight of which humanity sickens! and yet they neither appear intimidated nor appalled. The victim for execution is led out at the dawn of day, with no escort but the priest and executioner. Upon his bended knees he repeats his prayers after the padre. The condemned man is then shot in the back, his head cut off, his body thrown in a cart, and carried to a pit, where it is tumbled in and left. No words of extenuation, no excuse or quarter, is tolerated for an instant.