BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

CRITICS AND CORROBORATION 235
tracts or not. They all said they had been refused permission to
leave the house unless they paid back the money which they
were told they owed.'
GOOD WORK OF THE POLICE.
"From the time that the first notice of the infraction of the
labor law was received by the police officials at the fifth comisaria
until the prosecution of Hernandez was put under way
their activity has demonstrated beyond any question how far the
government authorities are from connivance in labor abuses
with which this country has been charged.
"The Mexican law provides punishment by five years imprisonment
for offenses of this character against minors, and expressly
forbids the signing of contracts by persons under legal age
binding themselves to work. As there is no legal detention without
process of law, the prospects for a severe punishment of the
man Hernandez, if the assertions of the lad are found correct,
seems certain, as he is likely to be made an example of for the
benefit of other labor contractors disposed to be careless of
their methods."
I doubt if I could do better than to end this chapter
with quotations from official reports of the United
States government itself. Cold-bloodedly as were the
succeeding paragraphs written, the statements that they
contain are yet exceedingly corroborative. They are
from Bulletin No. 38 of the United States Department
of Labor, published in January, 1902. I should like to
quote more extensively, but I take only a few paragraphs
from pages 42, 43 and 44.
"In a great many (Mexican) states where tropical products are
raised the native residents are employed under a contract which
is compulsory on their part, owing to their being in debt to the
planter. * * *
'The system of enforced labor is carried out to its logical
sequence in the sisal-grass plantations of Yucatan. There, on
each large plantation, is to be found a body of peons, called
criados or sirvientes (servants), who, with their families, live
on the plantations, and in many cases have been born there.