THE MURDER OF GENERAL FLORES. Ill
leading from his house to the Government House. The shops and the names have been altered. Men, however, still show the spot where the gallant old man lay foully- butchered, with his head to the wall and his feet projecting over the trottoir.
The how is easily explained. General Flores hearing that the normal revolution had broken out, or according to others, being summoned by a forged signature of D. Pedro Varela, President of the Senate, drove to the Government House accompanied by three friends — M. Flangini, Minister of Foreign Affairs ; M. Marquez, Minister of Finance ; and Mr. Secretary Errecart. Some desperate act was known to be intended : the shopkeepers began to close their doors as the carriage approached the Plaza Principal. Presently it reached the north-east corner of the Calle Juncal, where it meets the Calle del Rincon. A house was then buildina: here ; heaps of rubbish cumbered the ground, and, according to some, carts had been thrown down in order to stop the vehicle. Suddenly a body of men, variously stated to be twelve, eight, or four, rushed out of the neighbouring houses, and evidently acting in concert, began firing their pistols. The coachman and one horse were shot, which had the effect of overturning the carriage. General Flores drew his revolver as he struggled out, but he was killed before he could use it, by a ball in the mouth, and with eleven stabs by the long knives of the assassins. His friends were slightly wounded ; twenty or thirty shots were fired, and the murderers escaped. One of them is said to have been taken and put to death after the usual drum-head court-martial. But of this, as of many other details, nothing certain is known ; the man may have made off, or he may have been murdered by his employers.
The crime which made the fate of the gallant Flores curiously resemble that of Abraham Lincoln, took place
