Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1857-12-23

MEXICAN RoBBERs.-A writer in the Stock
ton (CaL) argus, giving sketches of Mexico
and the Mexlcans, says that the number of
Mexicans who annually take to the public
highways to rob and STEAL is greater than that
of the regular army of Mexico, while by
having an understanding in some States with
the public authorities and influential citizens,
they operate without fear of punishment.
According to intelligent Mexicans, twenty
thousand bandits are continually in active
operation, and in one State Jaliseo) their
power is predominant. They are well organ
lied, and no trains of goods or silver are safe,
unless accompanied by guards of soldiers ;
nor always then, for oftentimes the soldiers
are recruited from the bandits themselves
and of course often allow property under their
care to fall into the hands Of their old asso-
ciates.
The traveller runs the same risks and dan
gers, as the little stones and their solitary
wooden crosses testify in every public high
way or lone pathway throughout Mexico.
These knights of the road exceed in savage
cruelty the Indians, in whose costume they
often disguise themselves to carry out their
schemes of rapine and murder. Says the
writer:
al have seen gentlemen starting from Ma.
Ahtidh loA lAlS Sity VI A1ehlCO, ulVeSt Cnem-
selves of their watches and iewelry, leaving
those articles, with greater portion of their
clothing, in charge of their friends, and TAX
ing with them but barely sufficient sum of
money to pay their expenses to the capital !;
their drafts or letters Of credit being carefully
concealed in their neckcoihs. Persons TAX
ing these precautions generally receive corpo-
raj punishment on falling into the hands of
robbers, who, incensed at lack of booty, are
not very merciful in the castigation they in
hlct upon their unfortunate countrymen I;
and # they discover the drafts, they destroy
them"
The bandits are said not to be anxious to
shed blood, except when resistance ls antic-
ipated, which is not very often, as their coun-
trymen are NOTORIOUS towards. But when
they do kill, they mu.iate the bodies of their
victims in the most brutal manner. Villages
and cities occasionally fall into their hands,
and the outrages they then commit cannot be
equalled by the dreaded Apaches. Solitary
ranches are their most legitimate prey, and
in these they at times seek refuge, terrifying
them occasionally, and holding out against
the attacks of the forces sometimes sent to
capture them. Not unfrequently bands of
these robbers are commanded by men Of some
military experience, when their power Of mis-
CHIEF is greatly increased. Not only are off
GERS of the regular army sometimes connected
with them, but priests also.
Mexico, from its broken and mountainous
surface affords peculiar facilities for organized
robbery and other deeds Of violence on q large
scale. Says a recent number of the Mexican
Extraordinary:
"Woud that Mexico had no Mountains
II Indians sack and pillage with IMMUNITY,
the cry Of those whose business it is to chas-
tlse them, is, 'they have gone to the noun
tains;' If pronunciados levy contributions on
sent to pursue them, and either through mis-
take or carelessness fail to arrest the outlaws,