Page:Six Months In Mexico.pdf/165

Rh clipping: "He Loves Mexico." Moralizing is quite customary, at least with the English paper. After quoting an item from La Patria about a married pair quarreling so fiercely that the mother-in-law took bilious fever and died, it gave a sermon entitled: "Let not your angry passions rise." On another occasion, speaking of the criminal list being unusually large for the last month, it broke out with: "Oh, pulque, pulque, what evils are committed under thine influence! And yet, verily, thou art a most excellent aid to digestion."

All the papers which I know of are subsidized by the government, and, until within several months ago, they were paid to abstain from attacks on the government. This subsidy has stopped, through want of funds, but the papers say nothing against the government, as they care too much for their easy lives; so they circulate among foreigners misrepresenting all Mexican affairs, and putting everything in a fair but utterly false light. The Mexicans have nothing but contempt for the papers, and the newspaper men have no standing whatever, not even level with the government officials, whose tools they are. If a newspaper even hints that government affairs could be bettered, the editors are thrown into prison, too filthy for brutes, until they die or swear never to repeat the offense. The papers containing the so-called libelous items are all hunted up by the police and destroyed, and the and type are destroyed. These arrests are not unusual; indeed they are of frequent occurrence. in Mexico I knew of at least one man being sent to jail every two weeks; they are taken by force, in the most peculiar manner for a country which lays claim to having laws, not to speak of being a republic. Just for an imaginary offense in their writings, they are remanded to prison, and are kept in dark and dirty cells, shut off from connection with the world without trial, without even enough to eat.

A satirical paper named Ahuizote was denounced by some offended government officials and the editor was thrown into jail. Then Daniel Cabrera started another Mexican Puck and called it Hijo del Ahuizote (the son of Ahuizote). It was quite clever and got out a caricature entitled: "The Cemetery of the Press," showing in the background the graves of the different papers, and in the