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Rh A colonel of the army of Chili, Don Manuel Gregorio Quiroga, Federal ex-governor of San Juan, and, at that time, a major-general in Quiroga's army, perceived that this booty of half a million was destined for the general alone, who would not hesitate to box the ears of an officer for keeping a few reales from the sale of a handkerchief. He therefore conceived the idea of obtaining his pay by abstracting several valuable rings from the general stock. But Facundo found out the theft, and had him tied to a post to be publicly humiliated; and when the army returned to San Juan, the major-general went on foot over almost impassable ground yoked with a bull. The companion of the bull expired at Catamarca without attracting any notice. At another time Facundo, having found out that a young man by the name of Rodriguez, of high standing in Tucuman, had received letters from the exiles, had him arrested, conducted him to the square himself, tied him up, and ordered him to receive six hundred lashes. But the soldiers did not administer the punishment skillfully enough, and Quiroga took the leather straps used for the purpose, and swinging them through the air with his mighty arm, gave fifty lashes by way of example. At the end of the performance he himself poured salt water over the back, and picked off the bits of skin from the wounds. This done, he went home and read the intercepted letters, in which were messages from husbands to wives, charges not to be uneasy about them, together with receipted bills for merchants, etc., but not a word of politics. Quiroga then asked for Rodriguez, but hearing that he was dying, sat down to cards, and won immense sums. Don