Page:Barbarous Mexico.djvu/189

Rh, the Herald dared to print the story only on the authority of another paper, and it presented the matter in such mild and cautious terms that it will require a careful reading to bring out the full horror of the deed. Here is the item:

"The Pais gives the following story, the details of which it qualifies as too monstrous for even Zelaya to attribute to Estrada Cabrera:

"Luis Villasenor, prefect of Cualcoman, Michoacan, recently shot without trial an old man because his son committed a murder. The victim in this case was Ignacio Chavez Guizar, one of the principal merchants of the place.

"Some days ago a member of the rural police (a rurale) arrived at the house of the deceased in a state of intoxication and began to insult and abuse the family. A quarrel succeeded, in which the policeman was shot by Jose Chavez.

"The prefect of police arrived on the scene of the trouble and arrested the father and another son, Benjamin, the slayer having made his escape, and took them to the police station. That was the last seen of them. Soon the people of the town began to inquire what had happened to them. The story was spread that they had escaped from prison. But a relative, a nephew of the deceased father, having a certain suspicion that this story was not true, opened what appeared to him a recently made grave, near the police station, and there found the corpses of the two men who had been recently arrested. The prefect, not having been able to capture Jose or to learn where he was, had made the father and brother suffer for his crime.

"Commenting on this story, the Pais calls for the punishment of the author and the guarantee of the carrying out of the laws of the country."