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Rh which I had so early subscribed, were coming due. They had been scaled down from seven per cent interest to five per cent, then to a lower rate, and now whatever has succeeded them is a wanderer in Europe with no return, and the property they are supposed to represent is sliding backward. Its rolling-stock goes into the mire, and bandits tear up the rails, shooting the soldiers of Carranza and looting and shooting the native and foreign passengers.

Scarcely a day passes that reports do not reach my desk from personal and sometimes confidential sources, of banditry, looting, and shooting, concerning which not a line can be found in the general press of the day. The almost daily occurrences in Mexico would be sensational and call for glaring headlines if the happenings were north of the Rio Grande; but nobody will buy a paper to read about lawlessness in Mexico.

It is generally known that the copper mines and smelters are only partially operating in the north, that travel is nowhere safe in that country, and that only in the oil fields around Tampico and south is there any real business progress.