BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

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BARBAROUS MEXICO
getter, since the jcfe is never willing unless the victim
buys the jefe as well as the substitute. Usually it is
not necessary to buy the substitute, but only the jefc
politico. In some districts it is said to be a regular practice
to keep tab on the higher-paid class of wage-laborers
and when they are paid after a long job, to drag them to
jail and tell them that they have been drafted, then, a
day or two later, to send word that $100, more or less,
has been fixed as the price of their liberty. I was told
of an instance in which a carpenter was drafted in this
way five times in the space of three years. Four times
he parted with his money, sums ranging from $50 to
$100, but the fifth time he lost courage and permitted
himself to be led away to the barracks.
The ruraics are mounted police usually selected from
the criminal classes, well equipped and comparatively
well paid, whose energies have been turned to robbing
and killing for the government. There are federal
rurales and state ruraics, the total of the two running
somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000. They are divided
among the various states in about an equal proportion
to the population, but are utilized most in the rural
districts. The rurales are the special rough riders of
the jcfc politicos and they are given almost unlimited
powers to kill at their own discretion. Investigation of
wanton killings by ruraics working singly or in squads
is almost never made and the victim must stand well
indeed with the government before punishment is meted
out to the murderer.
In Mexico it is a small town that has no soldiers or
ruralcs and a smaller town that has no regular
gcndarmcs. The City of Mexico has over 2,000, or twice
as many as New York in comparison to its size, and
the other municipalities are equipped in proportion. At