Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/49

Rh suits of the poor. For the decision of a case it was sufficient that an oidor should signify his wishes in the matter, and he was allowed also to sit in judgment of questions wherein he was directly interested. As a body they sent judges in commission to districts where ordinary justices existed, this having been expressly forbidden. They went further than this, and released at will even malefactors condemned to death or to the galleys of Terrenate. All that seemed to be lacking to them was the investiture and titlè of viceroy. The minor officials and the very lawyers of the supreme tribunal committed excesses with insolent impunity in the assurance that their respective patrons would shield them from harm. Imitating an example so plainly set before them, the minor tribunals throughout New Spain, each in its microcosm, perverted justice at their will.

Protected by those in power, who not infrequently were partners in their gain, the rich had monopolized the very necessaries of life, and this during a time of great scarcity, when famine was raging in many parts of the country, so that the poor had to subsist on roots or die of want. The regidores of Mexico had seized and divided among themselves the annual subsidy of one hundred and thirty thousand reales granted by the crown in aid of the public granary, and they, in conjunction with a few wealthy men, had forced the price of maize, the staple food of the lower classes, from twelve reales the fanega to forty-eight. Even at this price the official in charge of the granary frequently turned away the starving poor, while to the servants of the rich and powerful he gave a