Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/37

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MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA
21

the authorities is close to 600,000 pesos. There are 37 cases before the District Court of the Capital. The amount for which the paymasters on trial appear to be responsible is the sum before mentioned, or, to be absolutely exact, 585,000 pesos. In addition there are other cases before the Circuit Court, the Supreme Court of Justice and the District Courts of the states. From the data at hand, a moderate estimate of the sum involved in these cases would be 400,000 pesos. However, we lack the exact data to give a detailed account of these cases. "With regard to the cases pending before the four District Courts of Mexico, two proprietory and two supplementary, we have the following information."

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The paper then proceeds to give the names of the thirty-seven defaulting army paymasters referred to with the amount which each is accused of having stolen. The list is too long for publication here, but it may be stated that the amounts run from 500 pesos to 180,000 pesos.

The foregoing instances of grafting are merely illustrative of the scope and extent of the public robbery perpetrated by the members of the Carranza government.

The United States Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor shows the total revenue and expenditures of the National Government of Mexico for the fiscal year 1909--