Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/127

Rh the people of the United States of the present day had no personal acquaintance. Its revenues were once immense, they say one million dollars per annum; but each succeeding revolution has impoverished it, and six or seven years ago, the late Bishop Portugal found it almost wholly in ruins and without funds to support patients. His office was worth a large sum per annum, and he had a large private property. He set himself earnestly to work to rebuild and endow this great hospital, and lived to see it once more in the full tide of prosperity, after having devoted his entire fortune and all the voluntary contributions he could secure to the institution.

The amount expended in building and repairing, and the property bestowed upon the institution, from the rents of which it is now sustained, was estimated, all told, at six million dollars. The first thing a revolutionist did in past times, was to enlist all the prisoners in the Jails and State-Prisons, then seize the moneys in the custom-houses, mints, and charitable institutions, then force into his ranks all the able-bodied men in the community, and levy prestimos on the merchants and wealthy men In this manner, society has regained from time to time all the thieves, robbers, and vagabonds which had been lost to it through the criminal laws, and the public funds and charitable institutions have suffered in proportion. The Liberal Government, during the late war, was compelled much against its will, but from sheer necessity, to use a million dollars of the property of the Belan Hospital; what amount the French and Austrians got I am not informed. The hospital now has about five hundred thousand dollars worth of property, from which it receives twenty