Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/292

284 riveted on. One of a gang of workmen undertook to steal the cap off a cartridge of dynamite, with the result that he and several others went to their reward.

Brantz Mayer relates a good story of an Englishman, who, while walking one of the principal streets of Mexico, felt his hat lifted gently from his head, and looked upward just in time to see it sailing aloft, suspended by a hook to a line which the sagacious lepero had let down from a lofty window. He also relates that some years ago three Mexicans stopped another, in broad daylight, and took away his cloak. "His cloak gone, he naturally imagined that the robbers had no further use for him, and attempted to depart. The vagabonds, however, told him to remain patiently where he was, and he would find the result more agreeable than he expected. In the course of fifteen minutes their accomplice returned, and, politely bowing, handed the gentleman a pawnbroker s ticket. 'We wanted thirty dollars, not the cloak,' said the villain; 'here is a ticket, with which you may redeem it for that sum; and as the cloak of such a caballero is unquestionably worth at least a hundred dollars, you may consider yourself as having made seventy by the transaction. Vaya con Dios!'"

While I was in Mexico, the following incident was related to me, among others, illustrating the total depravity of the lepero. A good missionary had taken in charge a young man who showed evidences of conversion, and he was installed as janitor of the chapel. I suppose that (if missionaries ever do such things) this good man would have sworn by this janitor. While this converted Mexican was in charge an organ arrived; a day was fixed for the exhibition of this instrument, and the heart of the missionary warmed with pleasure at the thought of feasting the ears of his friends. The evening arrived for the exhibition, the friends arrived, but when the curtain was lifted that concealed the instrument of music it was not there! Neither was the janitor: he had gone and pawned the organ!

As the distinction between meum and tuum is altogether ignored by the leperos, so also life with them is not regarded as sacred; they even look upon death by shooting as honorable,