pasted on their backs, for breaking into a house.[1] But at the same time careful measures had to be taken for the protection of our men and our government. Happily the people in general seem to have understood that some pilfering and occasionally other misdemeanors were unavoidable, and to have appreciated our efforts to defend, conciliate and please them, to maintain — in coöperation with the town officials — the municipal service, to provide for the charities of the city, and to ensure respect for woman, religion and civil authority. Vigne, a French traveller, says the Americans were much liked at Jalapa, and probably they were nowhere treated more pleasantly.[2]
At Puebla, August 1, 1847, the Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter wrote: "We have been now in this large City since May 15th, with a soldiery gathered from many Nations, many of them undisciplined, and yet, I will venture the assertion, without fear of contradiction, that, in no City of the same size, either in our own blessed Country or in any other, is private property, or are private rights, more secure and better guarded than here. . . . Not an instance, I am certain, has been elicited, or brought to light, of one of our soldiers killing a Mexican. . . . Tis truly wonderful, I cannot understand it.[3] The people are all contented, said a letter to El Republicano, for business is good and taxes are low; and, he might have added, an American band plays for us in the park. It is "almost incredible," admitted a writer in El Nacional, a newspaper of the state, how well the American soldiers treat our priests and women. How are they able to wear the mask so long? The common people, not seeing through the trick, accept their conduct in good faith.[4]
After the siege ended, some of our men were arrested for plundering houses from which they had been fired upon, and there was a little pilfering at the fruit stands; but Fúrlong, the Mexican prefect, urged the people to give the war no further thought, and friendly relations very soon returned. Street lanterns were still punctured occasionally by tipsy and facetious Americans with their bayonets, but they were paid for. When Lane's brigade of volunteers arrived, complaints began in earnest, and a committee laid the situation before Scott; but there. was no case of such importance that amends or even
