squad. At Tierra Blanca we stopped for dinner and, as the meal the rurales purchased for their charges consisted only of tortillas and chili, we bought a few extras for them, then sat and watched them eat. Gradually we drew the exiles into conversation, carefully nursing the good will of their guards at the same time, and presently we had the story of each.
The prisoners were all from Pachuca, capital of the state of Hidalgo, and, unlike the vast majority of Valle Nacional slaves, they were being sent over the road directly by the jefe politico of that district. The particular system of this particular jefe was explained to us two days later by Espiridion Sanchez, a corporal of rurales, as follows:
“The jefe politico of Pachuca has a contract with Candido Fernandez, owner of the tobacco plantation 'San Cristobal la Vega,' whereby he agrees to deliver 500 able-bodied laborers a year for fifty pesos each. The jefe gets special nominal government rates on the railroads, his guards are paid for by the government, so the four days' trip from Pachuca costs him only three pesos and a half per man. This leaves him forty-six and one-half pesos. Out of it he must pay something to his governor, Pedro L. Rodriguez, and something to the jefe politico at Tuztepec. But even then his profits are very large.
"How does he get his men? He picks them up on the street and puts them in jail. Sometimes he charges them with some crime, real or imaginary, but in either case the man is never tried. He is held in jail until there are enough others to make up a gang, and then all are sent here. Why, men who may be safely sent to Valle Nacional are getting so scarce in Pachuca that the jefe has even been known to take young boys out of
