Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/560

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554
Mexico.

open sympathizers; when the national troops were defeated near the Casas Grande river, in the month of November. The grounds for disaffection were stated to be the refusal by the government to grant the same "rights" in this instance as had been extended to the states of Cohahuila and Guerrero. The president was also denounced for allowing the amendment to the constitution which permitted the president of the republic to be eligible for office for more than one term, and he was further harshly criticized for the wholesale granting of land concessions and subsidies to foreigners, and worse than all else, he was charged with obtaining for his own use, corrupt profits arising from his official intervention and greatly to the prejudice of the people.

[A. D. 1894.] Another army now invaded Mexico, but the objects it had in view were of a diametrically opposite character to those of any that had ever preceded it. It was the Salvation Army, and came with an eye to business as well as to the propagation of the gospel, for before withdrawing, its representatives acquired by purchase 200,000 acres of land on which to settle a number of families from the United States and England. In November the city of Mexico was visited by the heaviest earthquake shock since the memorable one of 1858, and many persons were killed and injured by the falling ruins.

[A. D. 1895.] revival of the old dispute between Mexico and Guatemala over the vexed boundary line between the two countries, and which had furnished constant material for intemperate disputation in the past, gave good cause for the spread of the belief that unless the controversy was settled by outside