Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/576

570 there is a special fitness, for strangers soon find themselves following the same custom. Ask at any time a man or woman of the poorer class why they draw the blanket over the mouth, and you will at once be answered with, "Por el aire" ("On account of the air").

Police regulations are admirable. The men are uniformed, and stationed in the middle of the streets where they cross at right angles; and regardless of wind or weather, each one remains at his post eight hours at a time, blowing his shrill whistle every quarter of an hour, in answer to the call of his co-guardian of the peace. The quiet and order that prevail in all towns and cities attest their efficiency.

The body known as the Rurales constitute in Mexico to-day the most competent preservers of the public peace existing within her borders. They were once lawless and abandoned men, who led lives of wild adventure, many of them being bandits, fearing nothing.



When General Porfirio Diaz became President, he felt the necessity of providing the rural districts with an efficient mounted police force. The utmost forethought could not have predicted such grand results. Being as they are familiar with every mountain pass and lonely defile, fearless riders, and possessed of extraordinary strength and undaunted