moderate terrors to evil-doers. The really fine penitentiary at Guadalaxara is the only one in which modern ideas of penal discipline are followed. There is no death penalty for political offences—under which head the worst bandits would often seek to shield themselves—but the number of offenders is kept down by semi-official lynchings, shooting on capture, into which nobody ever inquires, and transportation to Yucatan. One cannot but look with uneasiness on the slightness of the means of restraint here and there employed. The bolts and bars are often only lattices of wood instead of iron. At the city prison of Belen some two thousand persons are confined. It seemed to me that a large part of them must be much more comfortable than at their own squalid homes. They made a strange spectacle, indeed, looked down upon in their large courts. Of all ages, and for sentences of all durations, they eat, sleep, and work at various light occupations together. No attempt is made to prevent their communicating or staring about. They have good air, light, and food, and are allowed a part of their own earnings. They take a siesta at noon, play checkers, gossip, and even bathe luxuriously in a central tank.
The liberality toward education spoken of is the more creditable since the Mexican treasury is not flourishing, and a yearly deficit is more common than a surplus.
These expenses appear to be regarded as essential, whatever else may suffer. It is the more creditable, too, since the heads of the government do not indulge themselves in expensive surroundings. The American legislator is not himself without his marble colonnades and his furniture of black walnut upholstered in Russia leather; but President and Cabinet ministers here walk upon threadbare carpets in the National Palace. The chamber of the Senate is a modest little hall; and the Deputies sit in
