BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

312 BARBAROUS MEXICO
them even relate deeds of the most bloodthirsty cruelty—relate
them with gusto, condemning not at all,
but treating the incidents as if they were merely some
excusable eccentricities of genius! The wholesale killings
carried out by the orders of Diaz, the torture perpetrated
in his prisons, the slavery of hundreds of thousands
of his people, the heart-breaking poverty which
he sees every time he leaves his palace, and which he
could greatly ameliorate if he wished, are of themselves
sufficient proof of his inhumanity.
Cruelty was undoubtedly a part of his inheritance,
for his father, a horse-breaker by trade, was noted for
it. Horses which did not yield readily Chepe Diaz, the
father, killed, and others he chastised with a whip
tipped with a steel star. which lie landed on the belly,
the most tender part of the poor brute. For this reason
the people of Oaxaca, the birthplace of Diaz, patronized
the father but little, and he was poor. That inherited
trait showed itself in Porfirlo at an extremely
tender age, for while only a child Porfirlo, becoming
angry at his brother over a trivial matter, filled his
brother's nostrils with gunpowder while he was asleep
and touched a match to it. From that time Felix was
known as "Chato" (Pug-nose) Diaz. "For Porfirio
Diaz"—in the words of Gutierrez De Lara, "the people
of Mexico have been the horse."
As a military commander Diaz was noted for his
cruelty to his own soldiers and to any portion of the
enemy that happened to fall into his hands. Several
Mexican writers mention unwarranted acts of severity
and executions of subordinates ordered in the heat of
passion. Revenge is a twin brother of cruelty and Diaz
was revengeful. Terrible was the revenge visited by
the child upon his sleeping brother and terrible was the