320 
GUATEMALA. 
hard labor is provided in great variety. I believe also 
that as large a proportion of crimes is detected and 
punished as in any other country. I have been enabled 
to follow several cases through the courts, and found the 
decisions in strict accordance with the law, both in crimi¬ 
nal and civil actions. 
It would be unfair to pass in complete silence the darker 
scenes in the life of the Guatemaltecan republic; but I 
confess to an ignorance as to the exact truth of the stories 
that have been whispered about, — whispers indeed that 
I heard myself while in the City of Guatemala. Distin¬ 
guished members of the old conservative party assured 
me that they lived in daily dread of the Government. 
Spies and informers were ready at all times to entrap 
them if in an unguarded moment they should utter their 
opinion of the political situation, or condemn official cor¬ 
ruption. Trial by court-martial — that most odious form 
of injustice — might result in their banishment or death; 
and I was told that the laws, however generally wise, 
really depended on the caprice of the President, who 
could suspend or annul them whenever he saw occasion. 
I am sure that these persons believed what they told me 
with bated breath; but I also know to what extreme 
opinions political dislikes will lead in these Southern 
republics. On the death of Barrios and the accession of 
Barillas, it is said that eight hundred political prisoners 
were released from the prisons where they had been im¬ 
mured by the late President, often without even the form 
of a trial. The universal rule of favoritism is too evi¬ 
dent to be concealed, and the amigo del Presidente has 
certainly undue power. To our Northern haste the tedious 
delay of all official work is a marked contrast, for the 
