AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 451 



have for the first time afforded the central Government for quick and 

 ready communication between the remote portions of the republic, a 

 stable government and a discontinuance of internal revolts and dis- 

 turbances have for the first time become possible. Thus, to illustrate: 

 Chihuahua, an important center of population, is distant a thousand 

 miles or more from the city of Mexico; and between the two places, 

 in addition, a somewhat formidable desert intervenes, of about a hun- 

 dred miles in width, and over which the Mexican Central Railroad 

 trains are obliged to carry a water-supply for their locomotives. Pre- 

 vious to 1883, if a revolution broke out in Chihuahua, the most ready 

 method of communicating intelligence of the same to the central Gov- 

 ernment would have been to send a man on foot, probably an Indian 

 runner. If the messenger averaged fifty miles a day, twenty days 

 would have been consumed in reaching the city of Mexico, and from 

 three to six weeks more at the very least, would have been required to 

 dispatch a corps of trained soldiers from the capital, or some interme- 

 diate point, to the scene of the disturbance. But before this the revo- 

 lutionists would have had all the opportunity for levying forced loans 

 or direct plunder, or the gratification of private animosities, that their 

 hearts could desire. And it is altogether probable that, in a majority 

 of such cases, political grievances were merely alleged as a pretext for 

 and a defense of plunder ; and it is a wonder how, under such circum- 

 stances, there could be any desire for or expectation of accumulation 

 through production, and that universal barbarism did not prevail. But 

 now, under the railroad and its accompanying telegraph system, if any- 

 body makes a pronunciamiento at Chihuahua, the Executive at the 

 city of Mexico knows all the particulars immediately ; within a few 

 days a trained regiment or battalion is on the spot, and all concerned 

 are so summarily treated, that it is safe to say that another similar 

 lesson will not soon be required in that locality. The new railroad 

 constructions were, therefore, absolutely essential to Mexico as a con- 

 dition for a healthy national life, and the country could well afford 

 to make great sacrifices to obtain and extend them, apart from any 

 considerations affecting trade development. 



But the American railroads in Mexico have, in addition, already 

 done much to arouse the most stubbornly conservative people on the 

 face of the globe from their lethargy, and in a manner that no other 

 instrumentality probably could have effected. When the locomotive 

 first appeared, it is said that the people of whole villages fled affrighted 

 from their habitations, or organized processions with religious emblems 

 and holy water, to exorcise and repel the monster. During the first 

 year of the experience of the Mexican Central, armed guards also were 

 considered an essential accompaniment of every train, as had been the 

 case on the Vera Cruz Railroad since its opening in 1873. But all this is 

 now a matter of the past ; and so impressed is the Government with the 

 importance of keeping its railroad system safe and intact, that the Mexi- 



