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52 Such customs need vigorous methods of repression, and to restrain hardened men, judges still more hardened are required. What I said at the outset, of the captain of the freight-carts, is exactly applicable to the country justice. He wants bravery more than anything else; the terror of his name is more powerful than the punishments he inflicts. The justice is naturally some one of former notoriety recalled to orderly life by old age and his family ties. Of course, the law he administers is altogether arbitrary; his conscience or his passions determine it, and his decrees are final. Sometimes justices officiate during their whole lives, and are remembered with respect. But the consciousness of these methods of administration and the arbitrary nature of the attendant penalties, produce among the people ideas of judicial authority which will have their effects hereafter. The justice secures obedience. By his reputation for formidable boldness, by his force of character, his informal decisions, his decree, the announcement "such are my commands," and the forms of punishment which he invents himself. From this disorder, perhaps long since inevitable, it follows that the military commander who reaches distinction during rebellions possesses a sway, undisputed and unquestioned by his followers, equal to the wide and terrible power now only to be found among the nations of Asia. The Argentine chieftain is a Mohammed who might change the prevailing religion, if such were his whim, and contrive another. He has power in all its forms; his injustice is a misfortune for his victim, but no abuse on his part; for he may be unjust, still more, he must be unjust, for he has been a lawless man all his life.