Page:Life in Mexico vol 2.djvu/231

Rh deposition taken down as to their motives for visiting the capital, their place of birth, &c. As a gratuitous piece of information, one of them mentioned, that, passing by a barber's shop, (probably with his eyes opened wide in the expectation of seeing horrible sights) he had observed a man talking to the barber, who had a stain of blood upon his queue, (hair being then worn powdered and tied behind.) Trifling as this circumstance appears to us, the Viceroy ordered that the person who mentioned it should instantly conduct the police officers to the shop where he had observed it. The shop being found, the barber was questioned as to what persons he had been conversing with that morning, and mentioned about half a dozen; amongst others Aldama, who did not bear a very good reputation. Aldama was sent for, confronted with the man who gave the information, identified as the same, and the stain of blood being observed, he was immediately committed to prison upon suspicion. Being questioned as to the cause of the stain, he replied, that being at a cock-fight, on such a day, at such an hour, the blood from one of the dying cocks, which he held, had spirted up, and stained the collar of his shirt and his hair. Inquiries being made at the cock-pit, this was corroborated by several witnesses, and extraordinary as it is, it is most probable that the assertion was true.

But meanwhile, the mother of Blanco, deeply distressed at the dissolute courses of her son, took the resolution (which proves more than anything else Revillagigedo's goodness, and the confidence which all classes had in him,) to consult the Viceroy as to