264 PRIESTLY EXTORTION. 



circumstances of the deceased, A faithful 

 Mexican servant in my employ at Chihua- 

 hua, once sohcited forty dollars to bury his 

 mother. Upon my expressing some surprise 

 at the exorbitancy of the amount, he rephed 

 " That is what the cura demands, sir, and if I 

 do not pay it my poor mother will remain un- 

 buried !" Thus this man was obhged to sacri- 

 fice several months' wag^es, to pamper the 

 avarice of a vicious and mercenary priest. 

 On another occasion, a poor widow in Santa 

 Fe, begged a Httle medicine for her sick child: 

 "Not," said the disconsolate motJier, "that the 

 life of the babe imports me much, for I know 

 the angelito will go directly to heaven ; but 

 what shall I do to pay the priest for burying 

 it ? He will take my house and all from 

 and I shall be turned desolate into the streets" 



and so saying, she commenced weeping 

 bitterly. 



Indigent parents are thus frequently under 

 the painful necessity of abandoning and dis- 

 owning then: deceased children, to avoid the 

 responsibihty of burial expenses. To this end 



sometimes deposited 



some 



niche or corner of the church during the 

 night ; and upon being found in the morning, 

 the priest is bound to inter it gratis, unless 

 the parent can be discovered, in which case 

 the latter would be hablc to severe castiga- 

 tion, besides being bound to pay the expenses. 

 Children that have not been baptized are 

 destined, according to the popular faith, ^o ^ 

 kind of negative existence in the world o\ 



