The Boy Travellers in Mexico / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Northern and Central Mexico, Campeachey, and Yucatan, With a Description of the Republics of Central America and of the Nicaragua Canal

by Thomas Wallace Knox

"NOT CAUGHT YET."

From pulquerias to police-courts is a very natural step, and one which is taken by a good many natives of Mexico. Frank and Fred took it, though not after the Mexican fashion, as their movement was voluntary, while that of the native is performed by invitation, or demand, of the police. The better classes of the population know next to nothing about the police-courts or where they are held, and it was only after a great deal of inquiry that the youths learned where and when to go. The guide who had shown them the sights of the city claimed to be unable to tell them, and when they ascertained for themselves, he was somewhat unwilling to accompany them. It is barely possible that he had been there on his own account altogether too often to make a voluntary visit agreeable.

They found the court in the municipal palace, at one side of the Plaza Mayor. Ascending a staircase, they were shown into a waiting-room, and beyond it there were several smaller rooms. Two or three gentlemen were seated at a table in each of the rooms, and seemed to be busily engaged in discussing something. Frank asked the guide what they were doing.

A MAGISTRATE.

"One of them is a magistrate," was the reply; "and the others are the lawyers, who are laying a case before him. One is the prosecutor, and the other is for the defence."

"But where are the accused and the policemen?"

"They're down-stairs, or perhaps they haven't got to the palace yet. They don't come into these rooms at all. The magistrate hears the case through the lawyers, and doesn't have the prisoner brought before him, as you do in your country." On further inquiry the youths learned that the magistrates hear the cases in this way, and decide whether the complaint shall be dismissed, the prisoner let off with a fine, or sent to the Belem prison, at the edge of the city.

Some of the prisoners were, as the guide said, "down-stairs;" but the greater number were in a building separate from the palace, and situated on a narrow street close by. There is a court in the prison building, in which the magistrates hear cases in the same way as at the municipal palace, without seeing the prisoner; they hear the testimony for and against him, and decide accordingly.