Slike strani
PDF
ePub

strong reason to suspect to belong to the associated brigandage, these persons can be summoned and solemnly warned; but this only puts them on their guard. Or, if there is more proof of guilt, they can be sent to a neighbouring district, and not allowed to leave it; but they are very little affected by this, and keep up uninterrupted communications with their old accomplices. What the Ministry will probably ask Parliament for is the power to seize on suspected persons, and send them to a place of confinement out of the

real terrors for the brigands, as it would take away the hope of release through a revolution, which robs imprisonment in the island of its terrors, and would debar the prisoners from making the gaol, as they often make it now, a centre where, through those released, and even through the gaolers themselves, new plots for crime are hatched. This is, no doubt, to treat persons not legally convicted in a very arbitrary manner; but it is at least well for a country that it should be governed by men who have the courage to speak plainly, and to let it be understood that, if organized brigandage is to be suppressed, an arbitrary way of dealing with it must be adopted and sanctioned.

have, it is said, caught the offenders, and it may be expected that this will be a warning to their friends and neighbours. The old Papal administration was so wretchedly bad, and brigands who mixed a little superstition with their passion for crime were so readily tolerated, that it is not wonderful if traces of old customs linger in a district where brigandage a few years ago was recognized as a peculiar but rather pious way of gaining a livelihood. It is when something very different is meant by brigandage that it becomes dangerous when it is an or-island. This would, it is thought, have ganized system, a vast conspiracy of one half of society against the other, a machinery of terrorism carried into daily life. Such a state of things is found to some extent at Naples, and on a much larger scale and in a more terrible form in Sicily. For such an evil the remedy must be sharp; and law with its regular processes is inadequate. We again have the honour of supplying a precedent to Italian admirers of our Constitution, and Signor Minghetti says that Italians need not be ashamed to have to do in Southern Italy and Sicily what free and enlightened England has had to do in Ireland. The parallel seems to be a perfectly just and right one. English law could not repress agrarian crime in Ireland, because no persons would give information and no jury would convict. The Government was entrusted with the power of sweepFrom The Pall Mall Gazette. ing off the persons it considered dangerA PEEP AT MEXICO.* ous and shutting them up in prisons, and MR. GEIGER'S book makes no more agrarian crime was effectually repressed. Not long ago the Italian Government pretensions than is implied in its modest determined to use or assume a similar title. He paid but a flying visit to power, and summarily arrested and car- Mexico, landing at Manzanillo, on the ried off sixty members of the Camorra of Pacific Coast, and passing through the Naples. There is no other way of break-capital to Vera Cruz; and he professes ing up such an organization, and the Italian Parliament must make up its mind either to let the Camorra flourish or to sanction such arbitrary steps on the part of Government. In Sicily things are worse, because the system of organized and associated brigandage prevails over so much larger an extent of country. Up to this time the Government has only tried half-measures, for there is a powerful party which is opposed to any sterner measures being tried, and no doubt there would be a considerable irritation caused in Sicily, which is by no means well disposed to the Italian Kingdom, if the Government were permitted by law to do things in Sicily which in Italy generally would not be tolerated. When in Sicily there are persons whom the police have

merely to record the observations that
struck him in transit. But he more than
performs his promise; his chapters gives
us the impression of being as true to life
as are the excellent photographs with
which they are illustrated, and he does
not go out of the way to swell his volume
by romancing with doubtful information
obtained at second hand.
gladly have learned something of the con-
dition of those mining industries in which
many unlucky Englishmen have inter-
But we
ested themselves so largely.
learn little or nothing of them from Mr.
Geiger, for his route did not happen to
lie through the mining provinces. On

We should

* “Narrative of a Journey across the Republic from

the Pacific to the Gulf in December, 1873, and January, 1874." By John Lewis Geiger, F.R.G.S. (London: Trübner and Co. 1874.)

66

the other hand, if we may borrow an For, at all events, their rivalry gives a Americanism, his rapid journey sam- fillip to a society that would otherwise pled " the country very fairly. stagnate. They are at least so many Mexico, as we know, is a land of mag- centres of free thought and advanced nificent capabilities. To say nothing of ideas; and, by remonstrating through those mineral treasures that proved the consuls and legations, when individuals curse of their Aztec possessors when they are murdered or wantonly pillaged, they tempted the cupidity of the Christian con- compel some regard to that foreign opinquerors, in the succession of climate be- ion which would otherwise exercise no intween its sultry sea board and its loftiest fluence at all.

plateaux it can grow nearly every valuable For, notwithstanding its perpetual proproduction of the globe; and one conse-nunciamientos and revolutions, Mexico is quence is that, like the fabled El Dorado the most conservative of countries. Noof our Elizabethan age, it has been a pit- where else, even in the former colonies fall for foreign capital, and has continu- of Spain, is progress so absolutely antially lured adventurers into leading lives pathetical to the genius of the people ; of unmitigated discomfort as long as they nowhere is the perpetuation of inveterate succeeded in staving off a violent death. abuses so jealously identified with what Except in the city of Mexico itself and passes for patriotism. The last war of one or two of the chief seaports, there intervention might no doubt have been are but few Englishmen in the country. expected to have thrown the country But in all the towns of any importance back when it failed so completely of its which Mr. Geiger passed through he professed purpose. But years have gone found Germans and Americans. They by since the execution of Maximilian, made a living for the most part. In a and successive liberal Governments have land where native luxuries are cheap, been labouring earnestly enough, accordthey even lived in as much comfort as ing to their light and very moderate was compatible with utter isolation among means. Yet, in spite of all they have a people who detested them from reli-done or attempted to do, life and propgious fanaticism and with whom they had erty seem just as insecure as in the times scarcely a feeling in common. These of any of the older travellers say, when unfortunates carry their lives in their Ruxton made his famous ride from Vera hands. The climate at certain seasons is Cruz to the frontier of the American deadly in many places. They cannot Union. Mr. Geiger only travelled by take a drive beyond the suburbs without frequented thoroughfares. His succesturning their carriages into arsenals am- sive halting places were in its most thrivbulant. If they take a stroll abroad after ing towns. Yet the whole length of the dusk, they walk revolver in hand in the way was infested by brigands; and he middle of the causeways to avoid a stab seldom prepares for a fresh departure from behind or a point-blank pistol-shot without telling of some deed of violence at the street-corners. They are sub-perpetrated at some place by which he is jected to arbitrary exactions and forced to pass. There is a standing tax on contributions. The law that should pro- travel in shape of the necessity of emtect them is frequently embodied in some ploying an escort of soldiers if you mean ex-guerilla, recommended by his dashing to ride. It is true, the escort is as likely atrocities to the liberal leaders of the War of Independence, whose friendship in the event of trouble is only to be secured on pecuniary terms. The merchants tell you and, as Mr. Geiger believes, they tell you truly that they can only trade to a profit under the crushing custom-house duties by entering with the coast authorities into private arrangements, by which the Government is defrauded. Yet they persevere in spite of all these drawbacks, although they seldom succeed so far as to save money enough to retire upon. It is an odd psychological phenomenon, so far as they are concerned, but it perhaps is the one point of hope in the dreary prospects of Mexico.

[ocr errors]

as not to turn tail in an emergency, or it may be composed in the main of brigands who are trying a turn in the army by way of change. Such as it is, however, it would be worse than imprudent to dispense with it. All the diligences, too, are duly escorted, and, what is more, an American car filled with soldiers is attached to each train that plies between the capital and Vera Cruz. As for the roads, they are always infamous and in wet weather nearly impassable. Thus, thanks to the miserable state of the communications and the universal reign of terror, inland industries struggle under terrible disadvantages, while much of the richest soil is left to deserts and despo

blado. If there is truth in the old prov- as ever, and it has been exerted invariaerb that when things are at worst they bly on the side of intolerance and the are likely to mend, there ought certainly narrowest prejudices. However wellto be hope for Mexico. Mr. Geiger meaning, then, may be the friends of points to the career of the late President regeneration, and even though they have Juarez, a full-blooded Indian, as a proof far more resolution and perseverance of the capacity of the Mexicans and an than they have ever as yet exhibited, it is answer to those who condemn them as plain that their progress at best must be hopelessly degraded. But if we rely slow. It is a mockery, indeed, to talk of upon what he himself tells us of the any general improvement in the country people and the system of administration, when we look at the tools the authorities the prospect appears as gloomy as may have to work with. State offices have been be. The population of 9,000,000 is made multiplied in order to keep dangerous up of the most unpromising materials friends in good humour or to conciliate conceivable. 6,000,000 of the people are formidable enemies. Naturally, there are Indians, savage and profoundly ignorant, many more applicants for places than although, after three centuries of servi- there are places to be filled. So the tude and oppression, they are still, ac- practice is to give a man the temporary cording to Mr. Geiger, the most sterling tenancy of a post, with an intimation that stuff in the nation. There are 2,500,000 at the end of the term he must make way of cross-breeds, ranging through all for some one else. Accordingly, he loses degrees between the Indian and the no time in making hay while the sun European, with most of the vices of shines. He squeezes his dependants their progenitors on either side, and unmercifully and robs the treasury uninheriting very few of their virtues. The remaining half-million claims to be pure white, although Mr. Geiger very naturally assumes that estimate to be exaggerated, considering that every one would call himself white if he could. It is true that Mexico has its cooler zones the tierra templada and the tierra fria - which are comparatively favourable to the preservation of European vigour. But we know from our experience of Cuba and other countries how rapidly the white race degenerates in these relaxing tropical climates, and we must remember However, there is one great national that the blood of the white Mexicans work that, after many delays, has at last "Yellow-bellies," as the American fron- been carried out by foreign capitalists. tier-men call them with expressive con- The railway that had its inland terminus tempt has been but very little renewed so long in the desolate chaparral on the from old Spain for many generations. verge of the tierra caliente is at last Yet these exhausted whites are supposed opened throughout, from the coast to the to be the salt of the mixed Mexican capital. Ready money is probably scarce race; the natural leaders of a degraded with its managers. The stations are very population, to whom we must look for much in the rough, and even those in the the impulse that is to overcome the cities at either end are mere sheds of dogged inertia of ignorance and super- wood. The traffic must be developed stition. For a full three-fourths of the and conducted under unusual difficulties; population are calculated to be absolutely for there are but few feeders in the way of at the orders of the clergy, and the clergy roads; each train, as we have observed, sets its face against all enlightenment and is accompanied by its armed escort; and progress. Recent legislation may have the mass of Mexicans are not greatly been rigidly enforced against the Church: given to moving. But the enterprise of convents have been suppressed; Church the company deserves reward, and in the property nationalized; it is forbidden to descent from the upper table-lands to any Mexican, male or female, to enter the lower slopes of the hill Mr. Geiger into holy orders. But at a distance from describes some most ingenious engineerthe seat of Government, at least, the in- ing.

fluence of the curés continues as strong

scrupulously. The Government connives at abuses which it foresaw when it gave away the appointment, and each of these petty tyrants and bloodsuckers is nearly absolute in his own province, for the central power is half paralyzed and the communications with the capital are difficult and uncertain. We can have but small faith in the future of Mexico unless the great neighbouring Republic should take it in hand; and as for Mexico's foreign creditors, we can only offer them our sincere sympathy.

[blocks in formation]

THE TUMMEL AND THE DUCK.

PAST runs the sunlit Tummel, strong from his wilds above,

Blue as the deepest cobalt, shot like the neck of a dove,

He is fresh from the Moor of Rannoch, he has drained Loch Ericht dread,

And imaged in Carie's waters Ben y Houlach's stately head.

He has mourned by the graves of the Struans hid in the night of the wood,

And laughed past the pleasant slope where our old Dunalister stood.

What though we mourn, we can comfort pain; Schihallion has heard him chafing down by

What if we die, so the truth be plain :

A little spark from a high desire

Shall kindle others, and grow a fire.

We are not worthy to work the whole;

We have no strength which may save a soul;
Enough for us if our life begin
Successful struggle with grief and sin.

Labour is mortal, and fades away,
But Love shall triumph in perfect day;
Labour may wither beneath the sod,
But Love lives ever, for Love is God.

his sunless steep,

And has watched the child of the mountains

deep in his Loch asleep.

He's awake and down by Bonskeid, he has leapt his Falls with glee,

He has married the Garry below, and they linger in Faskally;

Then off by Moulin of Earn, and down to our Duck and me.

Spectator.

ARRAN.

[blocks in formation]
« PrejšnjaNaprej »