Victoriano Salado Álbarez was born at Teocaltoche, in the State of Jalisco, September 30, 1867. He studied law in the Escuela de Jurisprudencia in the city of Guadalajara, taking his title of Abogado, on August 30, 1890. He has long been engaged in journalistic work, serving as editor of various periodicals. For three years past he has lived in the City of Mexico and has represented the State of Sonora in the Chamber of Deputies of the National Congress. He is also professor of the Spanish language in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School). He is a member of the Mexican Academy.

In literature, SeÑor Álbarez stands for the careful and discriminating use of pure Spanish, and for the treatment of truly Mexican themes in a characteristically Mexican way. He is an uncompromising antagonist of the present tendency, in Mexico, to copy and imitate the “modern” (and quite properly called “decadent”) French writings. His De mi cosecha (From My Harvest) is a little volume of reviews and criticisms, in which he assails this modern school and pleads for a sane and truly national literature. De autos (From Judicial Records), is a collection of tales, original and reworked. His largest work so far in print is De Santa Anna Á la Reforma (From Santa Anna to the Reform), an anecdotal treatment of that period of the national history. His latest work, La Intervencion y el Imperio (The Intervention and the Empire) is now being published in Barcelona, Spain. It is of similar character to the preceding, but deals with the time of Maximilian. The two first parts of this, Las ranas pidiendo rey (The Frogs Begging for a King) and Puebla, are in press as this notice is being written.

Our selections are from De autos and De mi cosecha.

DE AUTOS.

In the village of Huizache, on the twentieth day of February, one thousand nine hundred, having received the accompanying summons, we went to the place known by the name of Corral de Piedra, situated about one kilometre distant, and held an inquest upon the body of a man about twenty-two years of age, tall, dark, with a light down on his upper lip, with black hair, eyebrows, and eyes; he showed, in the precardial region, an opening produced by the entrance of a bullet, which had its hole of exit in the left scapula, and another wound, produced by a sabre, in the forehead, the wound measuring eleven centimetres in length, by one centimetre in breadth, the depth not being ascertainable for lack of suitable instruments for its examination. With the body were found a red serape sprinkled with blood, a leather pouch containing cigarettes, twenty-two cents in copper, twenty-five cents in silver, a copy of the religious print known as the anima sola, and a recommendation signed by Manuel Tames, of Guadalajara, in which the good character of a person, whose name cannot be made out, is attested. After the inquest, it was ordered that the corpse should be buried in the village cemetery, after first being exposed to public view, clad in the garments in which it was found—which are white drill pantaloons, calico shirt, sash, sandals, a palm hat—for possible recognition. Near the spot, where it is supposed that the deed was committed, a piece of a sabre was found, which is believed to be one of the weapons used in the attack.

Thus stands the record, signed by the Alcalde, and the other witnesses, as, also, the citizen, Gregorio LÓpez, practising physician, forty years of age, married, citizen of a neighboring town, there being no licensed physician in this jurisdiction. No autopsy was ordered, there being no suitable instruments for making it.

* * * *

On this date appears a complainant, who after being duly sworn, says that she is named Damiana PÉrez, married, without vocation, seventy years of age, native and inhabitant of Guadalajara; that the corpse here present is that of her son, Ignacio Almeida, twenty years old, carpenter, son of deponent and her husband Pedro Almeida; that said mentioned son died by the police force of this place, the matter occurring as follows: That for some time past the said mentioned son maintained honorable relations with Marta Ruiz, resident in the same house with the complainant in Guadalajara, which house is the alcaiceria[21] called La Calavera, that, as the parents of the Ruiz girl unreasonably opposed the relation of the lovers, Ignacio arranged to carry the girl away, which he did, coming to this village, where he proposed to work at his trade; that the deponent, being acquainted with the whole matter, and having gained consent of the parents of the Ruiz girl, who is a minor, desired to legalize the marriage and, for that purpose, had come to Huizache, where she learned that Ignacio had been put in prison and that he had afterward been killed; that this is all that she has to declare and that Don Juan Cortes, his employer, Don Manuel Tames, and many others who knew him can testify to the good character and conduct of her son.

* * * *

This same day, appears a witness, who stated, after the customary oath, that he was named Antonio Vera, married, fifty-five years of age, native of Ixtlan, and now chief of police of this place; that the body present is that of a person, who yesterday morning was sent to him by the municipal President, to be conducted to the capital of the district, accused, if he does not remember wrongly, of vagrancy, disorderly conduct, and abduction of a girl, who accompanied him; that, as is known, these accusations were made to the SeÑor President by SeÑor Don Pedro GÓmez GÁlvez, owner of the Hacienda de San Buenaventura, who also made complaint against the now defunct, that he had lost from one of his pastures two horses, which were there enclosed, one of them being known by the name of El Resorte, and the other being called El Jaltomate, as well as twenty pesos in money, and other objects which had disappeared from the general store on his place; that, this morning at dawn, he commanded his subordinates that they should saddle and mount their horses, which they did, and lead the prisoner, who walked bound with cords, between them riding in two files; that on reaching the place known as Corral de piedra, the now defunct, who had succeeded in loosening his cords, on account of the darkness, tried to escape, crying “Viva la libertad de los hombres; chase me, if you wish,” for which reason, those who accompanied the deponent, discharged their arms against him who was escaping, ceasing their attack when they saw that the prisoner fell dead; that Almeida, in attempting to escape fired two shots, of which one pierced the hat worn by one of the police and the other imbedded itself in deponent’s saddle; that he did not know how the prisoner could have secured the revolver, nor where he threw it when he ran; that he was equally ignorant as to how the body received the gash which it showed, as none of his subordinates used his sabre against the accused.

The declaration having been read, he approved it, not knowing how to sign his name.

* * * *

(Similar declarations of the four auxiliaries.)

Thereupon the coroner was shown a gray hat, with brim and crown pierced by a shot, apparently of a fire-arm, and a cowboy’s saddle with signs of a bullet shot in the horn.

* * * *

On the twenty-fourth of February appeared a witness, who, being duly sworn, stated that she was named Marta Ruiz, unmarried, sixteen years of age, without vocation, native and inhabitant of Guadalajara; that she knew Ignacio Almeida, with whom she had lived in illicit relations for six months, having before been in honorable relations with the purpose of contracting marriage; not succeeding in their desires, on account of the opposition of deponent’s parents, they agreed to run away together, intending to marry later; that, arriving at this place, and being without work, Almeida sought and secured it at the Hacienda de San Buenaventura, situated a half league’s distance from here; that, at first they lived there content; but that, soon, the SeÑor Don Pedro GÓmez GÁlvez, owner of that place, began to pay attention to her, urging her to abandon Almeida, and that she resisted; that Don Pedro was angered and threatened her to incriminate her lover, which he afterward did, since, about two weeks later Almeida was taken prisoner, without deponent’s having succeeded in seeing him meantime; that it is false that Ignacio had a pistol, and, more so, that he had shot at anyone; that she knows that the hat and the saddle (given in evidence at the inquest) are shown in all the cases similar to this, to prove that they were pierced; but that said marks are ancient, as she had been told that, in the inquest held two years ago on the death of Perfecto SÁnchez, they were in evidence; that three days since, on the death of her lover being known in San Buenaventura, the SeÑor GÓmez GÁlvez came to her and said “Now, ingrate, you see what has happened. You may blame yourself for this.” And, that then he attempted to embrace her and when deponent resisted him, the SeÑor Don Pedro ordered that they should put her off the place, which was done without permitting her to remove her possessions.

The declaration having been read, she approved it, not knowing how to sign her name.

* * * *

On the fourteenth of June, when it was known that SeÑor Don Pedro GÓmez GÁlvez was there, the personnel of the court went to the house of said person, for the purpose of interrogating him. After the affirmation prescribed by law, he stated that he was married, forty years of age, native of the Hacienda de San Buenaventura and inhabitant of Guadalajara; that he knew Ignacio Almeida, carpenter, who worked on his place for the space of six months; that, finally, having lost various animals from San Buenaventura, as well as money and other things, and having suspicion that the thief might be Almeida, he had informed the Municipal President, who ordered the arrest of the criminal; that he knows the said Almeida was killed by his guards, when attempting escape, at the place called Corral de piedra, and that he shot a pistol at the said policemen; that he does not know Marta Ruiz, nor has ever made love advances to her, nor was this the motive of his denunciation of Almeida, but the desire to recover the property, which he had lost.

* * * *

On this date, the preceding deponent was confronted with the witness Marta Ruiz (who was brought by force from her house), on account of the discrepancies found in their statements. The Ruiz woman, greatly excited, said to SeÑor GÁlvez, “You demanded my love and told me, if I gave you no encouragement, you would incriminate Ignacio.” The SeÑor GÓmez GÁlvez replied to the Ruiz woman, “It is false: I do not even know you.”

It was impossible to proceed further in the matter, as the Ruiz woman could not reply, having suffered a nervous attack; the investigation was therefore held as closed; the presiding Judge, the Alcalde, and the witnesses signed the records.

* * * *

Huizache, July 1, 1900. No grounds for proceeding against any specific person, having resulted from the investigation, these records may be placed in the archives. It is so ordered. Thus decreed the first constitutional Judge, acting in accord with the assisting witnesses.

FEDERICO GAMBOA.

If I must confess the truth, Don Federico Gamboa was not agreeable, as a writer, to me. His book, Del Natural, seemed to me the effort, not always well sustained, of a beginner of promise; his Aparencias, I considered a translated and adapted novel, after the fashion of the dramas and comedies which formerly were “adapted” for the Mexican stage; his Impresiones y Recuerdos, in which the author describes and discusses the time when he smoked his first cigarette, the color of the eyes of his first sweetheart, the ferrule with which his teacher punished his boyish pranks, and other equally interesting matters, made on me the impression of an immense exhibition of personal vanity, in which the writer announced his res et gesta, with the gravity with which a Goncourt or a Daudet might make known what he had done in life.

Thus, then, his new book, Suprema Ley, surprised me agreeably, constituted a revelation,—of a truthfulness so admirable, so vivid, so passional, so full of that well-founded realism, which does not permit a book to remain on the shelf of the bookseller, but places it upon the table of the reader and in the memory of the lover of the beautiful.

If one did not see, at the close of the volume, the dates on which it was begun and concluded, he might believe that it had sprung forth complete, a spontaneous improvisation, a work of the instant, in which neither art, nor trammels of execution, nor imperfections of detail had had a part.

In the novel there is not a needless character, nor a useless incident, nor a single page which does not contribute to the completing of the action and which has not a direct relation to the plot. Even the descriptions, in which our novelists are prodigal to the degree of piling them up indiscriminately, are in Suprema Ley, only different modes in which the subject is impressed by reality. In Gamboa’s work, Belen, the Theatre, the Alameda—especially the Alameda—perform the part of the chorus in Greek tragedy.

The characters are enchantingly real, to the degree that, after reading the book, we feel that we have encountered, seen, and spoken with the actors. Ortegal is a degenerate, whom we all know; Clothilde is a fallen woman with a mask of sanctity, a profligate, who entered the world for man’s undoing; BerÓn, Holas, even the Comendador and Don Francisco are the very breath of life, are full of enchanting and noble realism.

One given to seek similarity between the old and the new would claim a likeness between Dr. Pascual, the learned man of the RongÓn Macquart and the poor court writer, between Clothilde of Zola and the Clothilde of Gamboa, between the first night which the lovers spent united and the first night of Laurent and Therese Raquin, between the servant whose type Gamboa barely sketches and the Juliana Conseira de EÇa of Quieros. These similarities may or may not exist, but no charge can be made against Gamboa on account of them; he painted reality and the other novelists painted reality, and nothing resembles itself more closely than truth.

Gamboa does not possess what I will call the epic faculty, that is, the faculty of describing external nature, as Delgado for instance; as little does he have, as Campo, the privilege of retaining, in memory, phrases and gestures; nor does he possess a vein of humor, as these writers and as Cuellar; he is, before all and beyond all, an analyst, a dissector of souls who sees to the bottom of hearts, who seeks the lust that dishonors, the meanness that kills, the hatred that causes horror. For this reason, in my opinion, he will never be popular, while his luckier fellows will gain proselytes and friends as long as they write.

This is not saying that his book lacks attractive characters. Prieto is a well depicted jester, Chucho an admirably cut figure, Don Eustaquio, though somewhat melodramatic and somewhat out of place in that collection of beings of flesh and bone, is the providence which, dressed in jeans and working in clay, is brought in to give some outlet from the tangle; but, above all, the family of Ortegal is of the most delicate and tender which has been here described. Lamartine and Daudet might well have drawn the picture, if Lamartine and Daudet had dedicated themselves to painting Mexican types of the humbler class.

There is no doubt that the world of Gamboa is, as that of Carlyle, a heap of fetid filth, shadowed by a leaden sky, where only groans and cries of desperation are heard; but, as in the terrible imagination of the British thinker, flashes of kindliness bringing counsel and resignation, cleave the sky of this Gehenna.

In fine, Suprema Ley is a great success, a success which compensates for many failures and, by it, SeÑor Gamboa has placed himself among the first Mexican novelists—not, indeed, first of all, because for me, Delgado and Micros hold yet a higher place.