Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/179

Rh night the gendarmes have little red lanterns which they set in the middle of the streets and hover near. One sees these lanterns, one at each corner, twinkling down the entire length of the principal streets. There is a system of lantern signals and when one lamp begins to swing the signal is carried along and in a trice every gendarme on the street knows what has happened.

While the "plain clothes" department of the Mexican police is a comparatively insignificant affair, there exists, outside of and beyond it, a system of secret police on a very extensive scale. An American newspaperman employed on an English daily of the capital once told me: "There are twice as many secret police as regular police. You see a uniformed policeman standing in the middle of the street. That is all you see, or at least all you notice. But leaning against the wall of that alley entrance is a man whom you take to be a loafer; over on the other side lounges a man whom you think is a peon. Just start something and then try to get away. Both of those men will be after you. There is no getting away in Mexico; every alley is guarded as well as every street!

"Why," said he, "they know your business as well as you do yourself. They talk with you and you never suspect. When you cross the border they take your name and business and address, and before you've reached the capital they know whether you've told the truth or not. They know what you're here for and have decided what they're going to do about it."

Perhaps this man overstated the case—the exact truth of these matters is hard to get at—but I know that it is impossible to convince the average Mexican that the secret police system of his country is not a colossal institution.