Of the foot police in Mexico city, some time ago, it took nine to arrest a drunken Irishman, and then they had to carry him bodily to jail. Last year, here, I saw an American hobo who had just licked four of them, and was feeling so proud that it finally took a whole squad to land him in the commissaria. He reminded me of a farmer in Guelph, whose boast it was that, whenever he got drunk, it took the whole police force of the city to lock him up. There were only the chief and four constables in Guelph at the time, and they certainly hated to see him get drunk.
The police here, however, are at a great disadvantage. For if they should club a man who has any friends or influence they are sure to lose their jobs, and are lucky if they don’t get locked up as well. And if they should shoot under almost any circumstances, they are certain to land in the penitentiary. I saw a prisoner once being escorted by three guards armed with rifles and bayonets from the penitentiary to one of the barracks (to become a soldier) when he suddenly made a dash, got free, and ran up the street like a shot. The guards were hampered by their weapons and could not catch him, yet not one of them offered to shoot. The man finally ran into the arms of a policeman at a corner, who happened to be awake. In the States, on the other hand, the police are too free with their guns altogether, and will club a man on the slightest pretext.
The custom in this country is to put habitual drunkards, criminals, or loafers into the army for a term of years. So that nearly all the infantry regiments are composed of at least one-third of this class, the balance being volunteers. Within the last few months the Congress passed a new law regarding the army, to the effect that the soldiers should be drawn by lot, one man out of every hundred of the inhabitants. This law went into effect, and the first drawing was to be made on the fifteenth day of January 1912. From this date no more criminals are to be drafted into the ranks. There is considerable opposition to this law in some parts of the country, and I have not heard how the drawings came off.
The volunteers I mentioned above are intended to see that the criminal element do not run away. The barracks are always surrounded by a high wall like a prison, and have iron gates at which an officer and the guard always stand. No one goes in or out without a permit. When the wives of married soldiers bring their food (the Mexican soldier feeds himself) all the baskets are searched by the officer for prohibited articles. I have seen them at drill with a line of armed guards thrown out around the drill grounds to watch over the rest. It can be imagined what a round-shouldered, unkempt looking lot the majority of the troops are. The cavalry are a good deal better as a whole, as they are mostly volunteers. About five years ago, when there was some talk of war between Mexico and Guatemala, the police rounded up all the saloons and captured every one inside them to fill up the “Volunteer” regiments that this state was raising as its quota. They got some of my men, and I had to go up and identify them so as to get them out.
CHAPTER XXVIII
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.