Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/175

Mexico. An old Spanish porter was slain and cruelly mutilated in his dwelling, in the capital. So scandalous a deed excited universal indignation. The judicial authorities of the capital ordered rigorous proceedings against the culprit, but, after the case had been tried, and the murderer condemned to lose his life, he was pardoned in consequence of a threat that he would make important or disagreeable revelations if the sentence were executed. Another Spaniard,—a planter of standing in his district,—was murdered by the servants of a neighboring haciendado, with whom he had a dispute in regard to water-rights. The cause was tried, and the instigator and his tools were imprisoned. Yet the arm of justice was withheld by intrigue and corruption. Another Spanish planter, in the south,—a physician by profession, and a man incapable of injuring any one,—was foully killed by a band of Indians, nine of whom were shot for the crime. These miserable wretches had been but the instruments of higher criminals who were well known to the public, nevertheless they were too powerful to be made responsible for their shameful crime. At Tacubaya, in 1842, an English gentleman and his wife, whilst indulging in an evening walk were assassinated and brutally mutilated. But justice was for a long time foiled in its retributive efforts. Nor is it likely that the culprits would ever have expiated their guilt on the scaffold had not the foreign population loudly demanded, and liberally paid for their conviction. In 1839, the Mexican judges gave a striking example of firmness in the execution of a capital sentence, decreed in a case which lasted four years against a colonel of the army and his companions. It was proved that this scoundrel whilst residing in the national palace as one of the aid-de-camps of the president, had been the chief of a band of robbers who committed their offences not only on the highway, but in the metropolis itself. The honorable result in this case was chiefly owing to the firmness of the attorney general, who resisted the threats and the bribes of the criminal's powerful friends. Yet he, probably, paid for his firmness with his life, for he died shortly after the execution, and there is reason to believe, that he perished by foul means. During the administration of Santa Anna in 1842 and 1843, the most energetic efforts were made to free the country and the public roads, from the hordes of robbers that thronged them. The highway from Vera Cruz to Mexico was filled with thieves, whose favorite haunts were in the neighborhoods of Perote and Puebla, within the hearing of whose sentinels they almost daily exercised their vocation upon travellers in the diligence. Santa Anna placed large bodies of