The Anaconda standard., 1899-07-31
ARE FAR BEHIND THE ACE
Mexicans Are Slow in Adopting
New Ideas and Appliances.
RAILROADS NOT POPULAR
Engineers Who Kill Citizens Are Severe
ly Punished-Passion for Gambling
Prevades Every Grade
OF Society.


Five men sat about a table in the
Railway Ramh1ers, pas, ,h;,, :. h.,e
f'' which Is ii"ii
Saloon ana hair ciup, and STANDS
near the union station. They were
| bearded and erizz,ed ue,tbor-beatan
.ra LII,
"ihaAey VI many hihus
was within call and also champagne,
but they all took beer, That showed
| thew bad uorLaa IN Mov,oo Co.. sar
A''
! oo"h III 'he Aatin repuphc' Where the
! air is the air Of a furnace and beer
| costs so cents a mint bottle. n man
| ,o .,.. !. 49,,
| ~ app H. MANY Ahie
can Wnlskey drinkers go INTO Mexico,
but only beer drinkers come out of it,
| Three of the men who sat in the Rail
| 30, po,h,,.s, b.. ro ,,a,at,,,o
way f'ahioiefs NEST were iocoiiio'i'e
engineers, one was freight conductor
ana one had been brakeman. His
left leg Is buried, however. in Neuv7
Laredo, and now he potters about the
union yards ana pretends to be at
work. They listened to the clang of
| the street car bells outside and saw the
eIectric ilghts hare up as the dusk set
tled, ana talked OF the old days when
hrst the parallel bands OF steel were
driven through the stony heart of the
Dlaz country, and TO be railroad man
down there meant hard work, big mon
ey and big risk. They told tales one to
another, and there was no question OF
their truth. They were men who had
seen so much in wild land that they
did not have to lie in order to be i'm
pressive.
When the train GREY went into man
analand the Mexica did not like
them: They We're unused to folks who
dld Things to-day that oclud be put of
until tomorrow. They Objected to en-
| gines which killed the citizen who
| wanted to sleep on the tracks. They
encountered rough class of strangers
with whom they could claim no kin.
Still fingered in them memories of the
INVASION from the north--otherWise the
Mexican war. That was in the sos.
and an American in Mexico accused of
| offense OF any kind was in hard luck.
| Sometimes he was tried and shot, but
generally he was thrown into dirty
cell, where he died and did not learn
| the charges against him. The few
Yankee consuls were powerless. Often
they made no effort to interfere, know
Ing the futility Of it and loving their
own skins. Americans came to re-
gard arrest at the hands OF Mexican
authorities as equivalent to life SEN
tence in particularly undesirable PEN
| itentiary and were willing TO go to any
length to avoid 1t. When Mr.. Bayard
left the office of secretary of state 200
Americans We're confined in Mexican
jails with no specific charges against
them. The Harrison administration re-
leased them finally, but there is no way
of telling how many OF our country
men have died in confinement down
there without trial and without benefit
of clergy,
"All OF the Mexicans aren't SO
worse said an engineer. NOW and
then we used to hnd one that was
white II he was yellow. once near VIC
toria we were loaded heavy with iron,
and we hit the usual drunken Mexican
asleep on the track. Them folks used
to think a roadbed bettern Wool
mattress 1t was down grade ana
around a curve, and we were going a
fair clip, and. though we had air
brakes. we just couldn't hold up in
time. We ground him up. and at Vic
toria, 10 miles further on, We didn't
have any better sense thar to report
1t. or course the tram was sidetrack "a
and we were put in jail. Next day we
were hauled up before the alcalde. He
was little, dried-up man, with mahog-
any skin and snow-white mustache. 1t
br1stled hercely, but l noticed that his
eye twlnkled good deal and l sorter T
cottoned to him right away. We tod
him that we couldn't stop the train in
the time allowed us, and it was the
truth. He said. through an interpreter,
of course:
I've heard all this before. Five of
my people have been killed by trains in
six months and ! have let the train
crews go. They said they couldn't stop.
I'm going to see about this. Your train
Is on the side track. coupled and load
ed. Well fire up and go back to the
place where you killed Vicente. Well
run down at the same sneed. When
you come near to the curve you must
try hard to stop. I will so in the cab
with you
"Well, we fired up and ran back three
miles from the death spot. Then we
started forward again. OF course 1t
was not my business to run too slowly.
I wanted to show the alcade that stop
ping in the space described was an
impossibility. Old SO was a quick en-
gine, and inside of two miles, II being
down grade. we were doing a two
minute clip. We struck the curve at
40 miles an hour. The alcalde had never
| in biS life been on a train and he was