CHAPTER IX. 



.PUNISHMENT OF CRIMINALS. 



A MURDER. PREPARATIONS FOR EXECUTING THE CRIMINAL; HE 18 SHOT. CRIME OF THEFT. TUB EGUAU0TAS: THE!* 

 PLANS ; ARREST OF THE LEADERS. REVOLUTIONARY PLOT CRUSHED. 



August 22. A concourse assembled in the plaza, near the prison doors, indicated that some- 

 thing unusual was about to occur ; and it proved, on inquiry, that a criminal was to be publicly 

 executed at high noon. He had committed murder deliberately, the only crime for which the 

 law exacts so heavy a penalty. On the preceding Good Friday, and the fourth day after 

 discharge from an incarceration of ten years, he, with others, had gone into a shop where 

 chicha and liquors were kept for sale. Its proprietor was one of the Brothers of St. Sepulchre, 

 familiarly called "Cucuruchos," who are privileged to wear a peculiar dress mentioned in the 

 incidents of Holy Week. Having turned his back on demand of drink by the new comer, he 

 was stabbed repeatedly and died almost instantly. Although intelligence of most events is 

 disseminated through the city with a velocity elsewhere known only in gossiping villages, the 

 murder of one of the canaille was too unimportant to be talked of among the "upper ten;" 

 and as the papers chronicle neither "horrible casualties" nor "dreadful accidents," our first 

 intimation of the atrocious act was the preparation for executing the criminal. 



By 11 o'clock, hundreds of rotos and peons thronged towards the place selected for the 

 execution ; and at the instant the culprit was brought from the prison to the cart, those who 

 had filled the plaza poured in a compact mass in the same direction. Thinking that the dry 

 bed of the river would be chosen, as was currently reported, a stand was obtained on the 

 tajamar, within a hundred yards of where the great crowd had gathered. This commanded 

 a view of the pebbly plain for a mile or two, and it was presumed would permit distinct vision 

 of a method of capital punishment not previously witnessed. But it proved otherwise. 



Just before noon the cart containing the condemned, and its escort, made their appearance at 

 the opening of one of the streets a square or two below us ; and there was a short delay whilst 

 the guards shifted him from the vehicle to a hurdle of raw hide dragged by oxen. As the 

 most ignominous addition that could be made to it, the sentence of the law was, "that he be 

 drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle;" but the officers charged with its fulfilment 

 extended some mercy in his last hours, and instead of causing the wretched man to be dragged 

 over pebble-stones for a mile, only carried that portion of the command into effect during the 

 last two or three squares perhaps three hundred yards. The cortege was preceded by a 

 deputation from the Brothers of St. Sepulchre, bearing cross and banner, and many friars of the 

 order of la Merced. Its rear was guarded by a file of soldiers with loaded muskets. These were 

 to be the executioners. Two friars were seated on the hide with the prisoner, urging spiritual 

 consolation, if it was possible to utter other than disjointed words in such a conveyance, 

 and a battalion of the civic troops formed a hollow square round them to keep off the crowd, 

 their mounted officers in advance opening a path for the procession through the masses. 

 Although the hurdle passed within twenty feet, and my eye was at least ten feet above the road, 

 the crowd was packed so closely that it was impossible to obtain a glimpse of the prisoner. 

 Subsequently I learned there was so little malevolence indicated by his features, that they set 

 the laws of physiognomy at defiance, and the habit of a Mercedario in which he was out- 

 wardly clad was removed before execution. Two or three women were among the spectators. 



