Federal Rurales—Robbery by servants—Wholesale thieving—Lack of police discipline—A story of Roosevelt.

What I have said about the Mexican troops does not apply to the regiments of Federal Rurales (Irregular Horse), who are an entirely different class of men. Originally they were recruited from captured bandits, for the purpose of hunting down others. Now they are mostly recruited from the cowboy or vaquero class. They have good uniforms, fine horses and arms, are splendid riders, and have almost unlimited authority in the capture and even execution of bandits or road-agents. They are the men who are used in most of the Indian fighting and in local uprisings such as happened some years ago on the Texas border.

A few years ago a bullion train, between here and Tepic, was attacked by bandits and all but one of the guards were killed. He managed to stampede the mules, and get away with the bullion to safety. The Rurales were ordered out, overtook the bandits and arrested them; nearly thirty were shot without trial, on the spot where the attack had been made. Mexican justice, in cases of this kind, or in labour strikes, is very prompt, though to an outsider it may seem rather cruel. In the great strike in the cotton mills in Orizaba a few years ago, the strikers, after some rioting, burned down one of the mills. The Rurales captured the president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer of the local union who had instigated the trouble, and shot them on the site of the burned mill. This seems pretty rough on the leaders, but strike disorders will not be tolerated in this country. If by shooting four of the ringleaders the disorders can be stopped at once it is cheap at the price, considering the loss of life that would ultimately ensue if the disorders were allowed to continue. Look at the number of men killed and crippled for life in the teamsters’ strike in Chicago, or in the street-car men’s strike in San Francisco, and that was in a Saxon country. In a Latin country it would start in a strike and end in revolution.

The first year we were here the servants robbed us of nearly everything we possessed, and managed to get away without being caught. On one occasion, however, my wife caught one of the girls trying to sneak out with some of the children’s clothes. She stopped her in time, and, locking the front door, she told the girl she would have to wait till I came home at noon, it then being about 11.30 A.M. A few minutes later I happened to return, and my wife told me of the circumstances. I went to get the girl before I called a policeman, but she was not in the house. All the houses in Guadalajara, and in fact in the greater part of Mexico except in some of the foreign colonies, are built in continuous blocks. The front windows on the streets have iron bars covering them, and they all have double front doors; the outer one of wood and the inner one of steel bars, with a short hallway between them. The garden is in the centre of the house and is called the patio, so there is no outlet except through the front door. The girl, however, had taken a small ladder we had in the house, and with its assistance had got up on the roof of a small wash-house. From here it was nearly seven feet to the roof of the house, a straight wall without footholds, yet she had managed to make this climb taking her bundle of clothes with her, and had gone from roof to roof (they are all flat) till she found a way to get down to the street and to safety.

The police never make any very strenuous attempts to catch a criminal if the offence is committed against a foreigner, for they are regarded as lawful prey. Another girl stole my wife’s watch and chain, and though I laid complaint within an hour of the occurrence, the police declared that they could not find her, and she must have left the city. We had at our yard an old man as night-watchman who had spent most of his life in the secret service here. I went to see him, and told him that I would give him $5 if he could catch the girl, and within three hours he had her in jail. We never recovered the watch, but the girl got a sentence of four years. One woman robbed us in rather a funny way. We had taken her in without a recommendation, and my wife was watching her closely the first day she was in the house. About ten o’clock she came to my wife and asked if she could take out the “basura” (rubbish for the garbage wagon); she came from the back of the house with the basket on her head, walked right past my wife, who opened the door for her and then went into the parlour. As the girl was a long time in returning my wife went out to the zaguan (the hall between the inner and outer doors), and there lay an empty basket but no girl. She then went to the back of the house, and there on the kitchen floor lay the basura; and the wash-line was empty of all the clothes that had been out there drying.

A friend of mine had his house completely stripped of everything of value (by his servants) while the family were out; the thieves were never caught, though one of the girls had two gold front teeth (a most uncommon thing amongst Mexicans). Most people when they leave their houses, and no member of the family stays at home, either turn out all the servants and lock the doors, or lock the servants in the house while they are away. An American ore-buying concern here had its office in front of the railway station, the busiest part of the city. One Sunday afternoon four men drove up in a wagon, opened the door with a key, loaded the cash-safe on to the wagon, locked the door, and neither they nor the safe have ever been seen since. The police saw them at work, but thought they were employees of the house and so did not interfere. I went into a billiard hall a few days ago in Acambaro (while waiting between trains) to play a game; the proprietor said he was sorry but some one had stolen all the balls. A few weeks ago I was in a street car in Morelia; when we got to a cross-over the conductor cussed, for some one had stolen the switch (tie rods and all) during the night.

In Guanaguato, a mining town near here, there used to live a mine manager who was in the habit of keeping rather large sums of money in his house. His servant girl told some of her friends of this, and also that he would be out at the mine on a certain night. She was, however, mistaken about the latter, as he happened to stay at home. During the night Mrs. Rose woke up and found four men in her room. When she called to her husband one of them struck her across the back with a machete (cane knife), then her husband woke up and grappled with them though quite unarmed. While the poor fellow was putting up a most unequal fight his wife, though badly hurt, ran to the bureau, got out his revolver and handed it to him. But he was so terribly wounded that though he was able to empty the gun and scare off the robbers he could not shoot well enough to get any of them. His wife recovered, but poor Rose died the next day from his wounds. I am glad to say that the murderers were all caught later and shot. But there is a moral to this which many of us have learned: if you have a revolver keep it under your pillow and not in a bureau drawer.

A few years ago a poor old American market-gardener here was killed a most brutal way, being first tortured to try to make him show where he had hidden money that did not exist; he was well over seventy years old, rather childish, but liked and admired by the entire American colony here. Some of this bandit element then decided to hold up the owner of one of the largest hardware (ironmonger’s) stores here; but his wife and fourteen-year-old boy happened to overhear some of the conversation from the porch of their house (not one hundred yards from where the old man had been killed), and one with a shotgun and the other with a 22 calibre rifle went out and so peppered them that they fled with what lead they had received. It was lucky for them that they did so, for, on another occasion, a man did actually hold up this same gentleman, and when Kipper finally got through with him, he was glad to get into the hands of a policeman alive. I have said enough to show that the people are thieves, and at times dangerous. As I said before, there are plenty of policemen, but they are on actual duty twelve hours per day, and then have to sleep in the police station, ready to be called out in case they are needed; therefore they put in most of their duty-time getting cat-naps in doorways or wherever they can find a place. Besides this, they are recruited from the peon class, and get very little pay. During my first year’s work, when I used to go to the yard at 3 A.M., I have seen a dozen of them asleep on the benches in San Francisco park as I passed through. Discipline is almost unknown, and I have seen policemen on duty sitting on the curb shining their shoes. Of course they smoke all the time on duty, and very frequently drink more than is good for them.

What they need is a Roosevelt for police commissioner. They tell a story of Roosevelt when he was police commissioner in New York. One evening he saw a policeman standing before a saloon back entrance about to take a drink of beer. “What is your name?” asked Roosevelt. “It is none of your business; what is your name?” said the cop. “My name is Roosevelt,” was the answer. The policeman finished his beer, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and said, “If your name is really Roosevelt then I guess my name is Dennis” (a slang phrase in America, used in the sense that he was discharged). The quick reply saved him from more than a reprimand. This reminds me of a story of the judge in Kentucky who had a man up for making illicit whisky. “What is your name?” he asked the prisoner, and was answered, “Joshua.” The judge smiled on the court, and said, “Joshua, Joshua, it seems to me that I have heard that name before. Oh yes! you are the fellow who made the sun stand still.” “No,” replied the prisoner, “I am that Joshua who made the moonshine still” (the name given to an illicit distillery).