For three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here, but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier because one needed less food and clothes, and they were furnished by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days, however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a member of his master’s family, rather than a dependent; that the two were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany, and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table.

In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was liable to result in having one’s head snipped off by a machete; but to be robbed of one’s machete, or of one’s jug of rum, or of one’s only trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running down—or walking down—these outlaws. It is said that the detectives were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises, with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he met them in the street. The thief always escaped, either through the incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them.

But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police began to chafe beneath the public criticism. To impugn their honor did not hurt them much, though they ruffled a good deal under it, but to threaten them with reduction of pay or removal was a serious matter; so the chief of the San Juan constabulary bestirred himself, after a particularly daring robbery had occurred in his bailiwick, the rogue making off with six thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry. He got safely away from town and was traced to Humacao, where his footprints were found leading to the door of a small, tumble-down, deserted house, and none of these prints could be seen with toes pointing away from it. The chief dismissed his men and prepared to conduct a siege. He had a dagger, a machete, two pistols, and a gun, with a box of ammunition. Thus equipped he went to the front door, gave it a sounding whack with the flat of his machete, and bawled, “Open, in the name of the law!”

There was no response, so he struck his weapon impatiently against the panels two or three times and called on the bandit to emerge and give himself up. Again there was no reply. A bolder move was necessary. He pushed open the window, crouching down outside, that he might not become a target for the fellow, who was probably lurking in the dark interior, and after calling on him for a third time to appear and go to jail, he thrust his firearms in and began to blaze in all directions over the floor.

After emptying the pistols and gun he shouted, “If you don’t come out I’ll blow you to the bad place, for I have one hundred and fifty cartridges here, and I can surely shoot you.”

All this time the robber had been lying on the floor, just below the window, very flat and very still. As the chief did not show himself to take aim, but reached up from his kneeling position and fired at random, the bold, bad man in-doors began to feel a return of confidence. He waited until a second fusillade was over, when he slipped softly through the back door, went around to the front, waited until a third volley had been fired, when he pounced on the chief from behind, and in a trice had a stout rope around him. In a few seconds more he had the astonished and indignant functionary tied securely to one of the posts of the veranda. Then, calmly taking possession of the weapons, he lifted his hat, wished the officer a very good day and a pleasant siesta, and sauntered off to some other town where the police were still less active.