THE MEXICAN ANARCHY.
THE condition of Spain is not usually quoted as the European type of hopefulness and progress. As com- pared with some of its former colonies, however, the mother- country can fairly lay claim to a reputation for civil peace and orderly government. At no period of former or recent misrule, not even when Castelar's momentary confidence in Federalism almost abandoned the Peninsula to the men of Cartagena, has Spain descended to the level which forms the normal situation of Mexico. After seven years of revolution, the Spanish Generals can still find armies capable, if only properly handled, of sweeping every form of disaffec- tion into the sea; and in spite of innumerable previous levies, the sentiment of patriotism, or something akin to patriotism, keeps the masses of the population loyal and obedient, if not exactly contented ; while without warrant of Cortes or constitutional formality, conscription is made to suc- ceed to conscription, and an extortionate system of taxa- tion, by way of " exemptions," is perpetuated, compared with which the ship-money and "benevolences" of our Stuarts were legitimate exercises of the prerogative. What a nation Spain might be again, could it but find a ruler! It is not so easy to discern any ground for encouragement in regard to Mexico. Without foreign war or disputed succession, the condition of Mexico seems to be to-day as distracted as at the stormiest period of the presidency of Juarez. It was expected in some sanguine quarters that the accession of Lerdo de Tejada would be the beginning of a new era, and his speech to the Congress, as late as June last, shows that he had not himself abandoned any of these flattering anticipations. The Mexican people—if such a corporate entity can be really held to exist outside the mere aggregate of white, black, brown, and copper-coloured races, hostile castes, grovelling superstitions, and conflicting cupidities--must have ceased to hold any such roseate opinions.
The expulsion of the Sisters of Mercy and similar Catholic .erganisations by the Mexican Congress appears to have given ' the signal or the pretext for the new disorders. The State of Mechoacan saw the first assemblage of gangs of armed men, who, to the cry of " Give us back our holy nuns !" waylaid isolated detachments of the Government troops, " sequestrated" the property of Liberal and wealthy neighbours and by easy gradations went on to stopping diligences and rifling travellers, with an increasing impartiality as to sectarian or political considerations. If the priests thought to inflame the country
against an undutiful, if not absolutely heretical Cabinet, they quickly learned that the agitation they meant to direct had become the monopoly of lay adventurers, with views on Church affairs which seldom went beyond the Church plate. Losing more and more completely every day any characteristics of a war of religion which it might have originally possessed, the movement went on extending itself with inconceivable rapidity, till the Have-note of every district and territory of the Republic seemed to be combined against the actual possessors of property, office, or power. A German correspondent, writing from Mazat- lan, on the Pacific coast, describes the agitation as a confederacy of " all the gallows-birds of the country," who have declared war on property, and make it a maxim of their strategy to avoid encounters with the regular troops, though on occasion they can exhibit a desperate courage. This description would seem to be borne out by the practice of the insurgents in attacking the jails and releasing the prisoners, whenever they get the oppor- tunity. If, however, a story which comes from the capital itself be accurate, a desire to consult the feelings of the convict classes is not exclusively confined to the opponents of the ex- isting Government. In the city of Mexico, the Director of the central prisons is stated to have graciously accorded permission to the inmates of the male establishment to celebrate a ball on the premises, a supply of suitable partners being provided by transporting the denizens of the female penitentiary to the scene of festivity for the evening. The joyous convicts, struck by this evidence of urbane sympathy on the part of their warders, proceeded to express their confidence in the good-feeling shown to them by arranging an escape altogether, and it was only by a surprising chance that the majority of the brave and fair refugees from justice were again immured within the hos- pitable mansions of the law.
The banditti who now, under a thousand different leaders, contest the supremacy of the central Government, are reported to be in force in almost every State of the Republic, and no State is entirely free from their presence. The populous terri- tories of Jalisco, Colima, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, &c., are completely overrun, and as the pro- tection of the chief towns employs all the available resources of the authorities, the open country and the villages are quite at the mercy of the insurgents. General Escobedo was to have united all the disposable troops for a regular campaign against the brigands, but the portion of the Army which can be spared, after the needful task of garrisoning the centres of population and trade has been performed, must be inadequate to the reduction of so vast and thinly- populated a territory. The strategy of the guerrillas in .voiding pitched battles, and their habit of seldom or never exceeding a strength of a couple of hundred men at any one place, immensely increase the difficulty of pursuit and capture. Besides, there have not been wanting numerous signs of a good understanding between the defenders and the disturbers of public order. Barely a hundred insurgent guerrillas could venture to ride boldly into the important town of Zamora and levy contributions of war to their hearts' content, notwith- standing the presence of a garrison of regulars at least thrice their number ; nor was it esteemed a light merit on the part of the military commander, that he retained sufficient control over his soldiery to prevent them from actively aiding in the plunder of the town. At La Paz, in Lower California, the influence of the Governor-General of the province, Don Viviano Davalos, in person was not able to effect even this much, for when the partisan chief Emiliano Ibarra made his entry one morning with only a score of desperadoes at his back, he was at once joined by the soldiers in garri- son, who did not even hesitate to take prisoner Governor- General Don Viviano himself. Between the guerrillas and the terrible Apaches, the State of Sonora is so harassed that forty thousand of its inhabitants are reported to have abjured their traditional hatred of the "Americanos," and to have crossed as settlers into the United States territory of Arizona. The citizens of Durango were either infested with a less formidable variety of parasites, or were possessed of more robust courage than the generality of their compatriots, for Durango is said to have entirely swept the banditti from its confines. Perhaps we should take the recent capture of the renowned free-lance, General Cortina, who for a generation has been the scourge of the United States and Mexican borders, as an indi- cation that there are still commanders on the side of the Government capable of avenging the cause of order. Cortina had the most dreaded local reputation of all the free-lances of Mexico, and yet he was seized by a handful of troops in the midst of his adherents, and of the district which he ter-
rorised. It is possible that even Mexico, like Spain, only wants a ruler, in order to emerge decisively from the slough of revolution; but anarchy has now lasted nearly a generation.
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