Page:A history of Chile.djvu/365

 PART V —THE CIVIL WAR OF 1891 CHAPTER I PRESIDENT BALMACEDA MATERIAL PROGRESS The conservative opposition had grown more and more pronounced during Santa Maria's administration, and the elections had come to be marked by turbu- lence, fraud, oppression and bloodshed. In the elec- tions of 1882, two men had been killed and seven wounded; in those of 1885, seventeen were killed and one hundred and sixty-five wounded; in the elections of the year 1886, forty-six were killed, and one hun- dred and sixty wounded, making a total of sixty killed and three hundred and thirty-two wounded. When we consider the small voting population, only one in fifty, suffrage being limited to those who can read and are registered and qualified high tax-payers, it will be seen that the elections had somewhat the appearance of civil revolts, so high did party feeling run. The Santa Maria government threw all its influence toward the election of Don Jos^ Manuel Balmaceda. The opposition sought at first to unite upon Don Jos6 Francisco Vergara, but failed in this. The three or four sections of the liberal party were vastly in the ascendency, outnumbering the Montt-Varistas, clericals and conservatives; and the official candidate met with