They have their own bands and a number of buglers. Every man owns his horse, which must in color match that of the rest of the regiment. Their uniform is yellow buckskin, elaborately embroidered with silver and gold, upon the pants and on the back, front and sleeves of the short cutaway jacket. Their wide sombrero is the same color, finished with the same embroidery and a silver cord and tassel. Their saddles also match their suits in color and silver finish. How they ride! It is simply perfection. The horse and rider seem to be one.
I don't think they could carry any more weapons if they tried. Each man has a good carbine, a sword, two revolvers, the same number of daggers and two lassos, and they fight with any or all of these weapons. They fight very cleverly with the lasso. If they wish to take a prisoner—a very unusual proceeding on their part—they, with the rope, can either lasso man and horse together or two or more men. The other lasso is of wire, which not only catches the fugitive, but knocks him senseless or cuts his head off, as the case may be.
These rurales guide tourists through the interior and also attend all public places to keep order; they receive one dollar a day, which is enormous compared with the other soldiers' pay of six and one-quarter cents. They have their horses in perfect control, and can make them execute all kinds of movements in a body, while the tricks performed by individual horses are numberless.
The Mexicans have a good deal of suppressed wrath bothering them at the present day; they know that Diaz is a tyrannical czar, and want to overthrow him. It may be readily believed that Diaz knows they are bound to get rid of this superfluous feeling, and he would much rather have them vent its strength on the Americans than on himself; thus he stands on the war question. He is a good general, and has many good, tough old soldiers, the best of whom is ex-President Gonzales, to aid him, besides the convict soldiers and the rurales.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PRESS OF MEXICO.
The press of Mexico is like any of the other subjects of that monarchy, yet it is a growing surprise to the American used to free movement, speech and print who visits Mexico with the attained idea that it is a republic. Even our newspapers have been wont to clip from the little sheets which issue from that country, believing them untrammeled, and quoting them as the best authority, when, in truth, they are but tools of the organized ring, and are only capable of deceiving the outsider.
In the City of Mexico there are about twenty-five newspapers published, and throughout the empire some few, which are perused by the smallest possible number of people. The Mexicans understand thoroughly how the papers are run, and they consequently have not the slightest respect in the world for them. One can travel for miles, or by the day, and never see a man with a newspaper. They possess such a disgust for newspapers that they will not even use one of them as a subterfuge to hide behind in a street car when some woman with a dozen bundles, three children and two baskets is looking for a seat.
The best paper in Mexico is El Monitor Republicano (the Republican Monitor), which claims to have, in the city, suburbs, and United States, a circulation of five thousand. It is printed entirely in Spanish. The Mexican Financier is a weekly paper—filled with advertisements from the States—which is published in English and Spanish, and is bought only by those who want to learn the Spanish language, yet it is the best English paper in Mexico. Another English paper is published by an American, Howell Hunt, in Zacatecas, but it, like the rest, is of little or no account. One of the newsiest, if not the newsiest, is El Tiempo (the Times), which is squelched about every fortnight, as it is anti-governmental.