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BARBAROUS MEXICO

tion officers were in the act of leading him to the boundary line when he bolted and succeeded in escaping by running through the streets of El Paso. Librado Rivera, first speaker of the Liberal Junta, with Aaron Mansano, was kidnapped at St. Louis by city detectives, was hurried as far as Ironton, Missouri, but was there rescued and brought back through an exposé which was made by one of the St. Louis papers.

As for Magon, for months he was hunted by detectives from city to city. He went to California, but was still kept dodging and once masqueraded as a woman in order to escape the Diaz hounds. Finally, he revived his paper in Los Angeles under the name of "Revolucion" and here he was joined by Villarreal and Rivera. The three worked quietly together, keeping always indoors in the daytime and going out for their airing only at night and in disguise.

Early in August, 1907, the hiding-place of the Liberal leaders in Los Angeles was located. The evidence seems to point to a plot to kidnap them much as Sarabia was kidnapped. First, the officers had plenty of time in which to procure a warrant, but they did not procure a warrant nor even attempt to do so. Second, they secreted an automobile in the vicinity and did not use it after the arrest. Third, when the three men, fearing a kidnapping plot, cried out at the top of their voices, the officers beat them with pistols most brutally, Magon being beaten until he lay bleeding and insensible on the ground. This circumstantial evidence of a kidnapping plot is borne out by the direct testimony of one of the hirelings of the Mexican consul at that time, who has since confessed that there was such a plot and that the Mexican consul was the man who hatched it.

Everything seems to have been arranged. The descent