GOVEENMENT OF MEXICO. 189 



The number of parliamentary representatives increases with the population ; 

 for this purpose each state is divided into as many electoral circles as there are 

 40,000 inhabitants, and each circle elects a representative from candidates over 

 twenty-five years old for a period of two years. The senators, who must be at 

 least thirty, are elected for four years, two for each state, so that they number 

 fifty-six for the twenty-seven states and two territories ; every two years half of 

 the senate is re-elected. The Congress, that is to say, the two chambers combined, 

 holds two regular annual sessions, comprising a total of at least forty-five sittings; 

 both deputies and senators receive a yearly allowance for their services. A 

 permanent delegation of the Congress sits during the recesses. The capital, 

 where Congress meets, lies not in any of the states, but in a neutral territory, the 

 so-called "federal district," formed by a circuit of "two leagues," or six miles' 

 radius round the central spot. The president of the Mexican United States, 

 chosen in the second degree by popular vote, was, till recently, appointed for a 

 term of four years, but in virtue of an amendment in the constitution passed in 

 1887, he may be re-elected for a second term, and the president in whose favour 

 this law was enacted was in fact so re-elected. In 1890, by another law, he was 

 made president for life. 



The judiciary power is exercised by district and circuit courts and a supreme 

 tribunal composed of judges elected for a period of six years. The civil and 

 criminal code is the same for all the states except those of Vera Cruz and 

 Tlaxcala. Imprisonment for debt is abolished, and the republic binds itself to 

 reject all extradition treaties for political offences. The decimal system has been 

 legalised for weights, measures, and currency. 



Under the colonial régime the clergy exercised great power in the government 

 of the country. Its enormous revenues, combined with the spiritual authority 

 enabling it to open or close the gates of heaven, ensured it the unquestioned 

 control of the Indian populations. Some of the prelates had incomes ot £40,000, 

 and, according to Lucas Alaman, the ecclesiastical estate represented half of the 

 whole property of Mexico. Although the wealth and power of these high 

 dignitaries were diminished by the war of independence, the clergy still retained 

 great influence, for the Creole priests, such as Hidalgo and Morelos, who sided 

 with the people or even stirred them to revolt against Spain, caused those church- 

 men to be forgotten who, on the contrary, hurled anathemas against the rebels. 

 About the middle of the present century Lerdo de Tejada still estimated at one- 

 third of the national territory the lands owned by the clergy. With the revenues 

 derived from hypothecated trusts and from tithes still illegally collected, this 

 vast fortune yielded an annual income of about £4,000,000. But in 1855 the 

 clergy numbered altogether not more than 4,615, some "poor curates," others 

 prelates and other dignitaries " rolling in wealth." A first blow had been given 

 to the power of the Church by the Spaniards themselves in 1767, when all the 

 Jesuits residing in Mexico were imprisoned, deprived of their property and then 

 banished. The revolution was completed nearly a century afterwards, in 1857, 

 by the mortmain law ordering the immedi;ite sale of ecclesiastical property. But 



