MALADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 



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Mexico. An old Spanish porter was slain and cruelly mutilated in 

 his dwelling, in the capital. So scandalous a deed excited univer- 

 sal indignation. The judicial authorities of the capital ordered 

 rigorous proceedings against the culprit, but, after the case had 

 been tried, and the murderer condemned to lose his life, he was 

 pardoned in consequence of a threat that he would make important 

 or disagreeable revelations if the sentence were executed. Another 

 Spaniard, — a planter of standing in his district, — was murdered 

 by the servants of a neighboring haciendado, with whom he had a 

 dispute in regard to water-rights. The cause was tried, and the 

 instigator and his tools were imprisoned. Yet the arm of justice 

 was withheld by intrigue and corruption. Another Spanish plan- 

 ter, in the south, — a physician by profession, and a man incapable 

 of injuring any one, — w T as foully killed by a band of Indians, nine 

 of whom were shot for the crime. These miserable wretches had 

 been but the instruments of higher criminals who were well known 

 to the public, nevertheless they were too powerful to be made re- 

 sponsible for their shameful crime. At Tacubaya, in 1842, an 

 English .gentleman and his wife, whilst indulging in an evening 

 walk were assassinated and brutally mutilated. But justice was 

 for a long time foiled in its retributive efforts. Nor is it likely that 

 the culprits, would ever have expiated their guilt on the scaffold 

 had not the foreign population loudly demanded, and liberally paid 

 for their conviction. In 1839, the Mexican judges gave a striking 

 example of firmness in the execution of a capital sentence, decreed 

 in a case which lasted four years against a colonel of the army and 

 his companions. It was proved that this scoundrel whilst residing 

 in the national palace as one of the aid-de-camps of the president, 

 had been the chief of a band of robbers who committed their offences 

 not only on the highway, but in the metropolis itself. The honor- 

 able result in this case was chiefly owing to the firmness of the 

 attorney general, who resisted the threats and the bribes of the 

 criminal's powerful friends. Yet he, probably, paid for his firm- 

 ness with his life, for he died shortly after the execution, and there 

 is reason to believe, that he perished by foul means. During the 

 administration of Santa Anna in 1842 and 1843, the most energetic 

 efforts were made to free the country and the public roads, from the 

 hordes of robbers that thronged them. The highway from Vera 

 Cruz to Mexico was filled with thieves, whose favorite haunts were 

 in the neighborhoods of Perote and Puebla, within the hearing of 

 whose sentinels they almost daily exercised their vocation upon 

 travellers in the diligence. Santa Anna placed large bodies of 



