Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-10-09
RAILROADING IN MEXICO.
The stupidity of Poems and Local
Regulations Are ExasperatinG
Beyond Endurance.

"R%ailroading in Mexico has its Pc
culiar perils to the peons," said a re-
turned civil engineer of a construction
company which operates in the south
ern republic, relates the Brooklyn
Eagle. "You know a peon will stand
at the foot of a hill and watch a de-
tached bowlder coming straight to-
ward him and not stir until it has hit
him. killing him or breaking a leg or
two. His brains seem to have no gray
matter. 1t requires five or six poems
to lift a rock that could easily be moved
by one Anglo-Saxon, and their peak
crowned and broad brimmed hats
bump together as they strain and
heave-ho. After it is lifted they all
shout in their lingo: Don't let got
If one let's go then they all yell and
drop the stone, and it hits about five
of the mems feet, as a rule. AS they
work ba~refooted, the results are dis
tressing.
when railroads were first put
through Mexican territory the c%urios-
ity of the poems was unreasonable.
They gathered, day or night, along the
track and became a pest and a nuis-
ance because they were so ignorant
of the ways of the locomotives that
they often got recklessly on the track
and were MANNED or killed. That sort
of accident is a different matter in
Mexico from what it is in the states,
owing to the difference in the laws.
By the Mexican law, if a person is
MANNED or killed he must await the
action of the judge of the first in
stance, who may be, and usually is,
miles distant from the scene of the
accident. Until the judge arrives no
one must, under penalty of imprison-
ment, touch the body, and a MANNED
person may die before medical aid can
be summoned. l was once on a con-
struction train that ran over and cut
off both feet of a peon, and the judge
did not reach him until the following
day. OF course, the poor fellow was
dead when the Judge arrived.
"By the Mexican law, also. no one is
allowed to remove the body of a per-
son killed until the judge of the first
instance arrives. This is sometimes
awkward. I saw once the body of a
peon, killed on the main track near a
station, lie there for two days, while
the trains had to go around it by means
of a siding to avoid running over it.
In those early days of railroading so
many poems were killed on the rail-
roads that the habit of the civil au-
thorities in locking up engineer, fire.
man, conductor and the entire train
crew until investigation was made of
the circumstances of the killing
became highly detrimental to the
management of the roads. l have
known a locomotive engineer to be in
a Mexican Jail for two months on a
charge of running over a native. In
time this became exasperating.
"The peon will steal anything on a
track or about a car that is not fas-
tened down, and the railroad men
learned to hate them religiously. Of
course, something had to be done to
avoid punishment in the event of run
ming over a peon, and the railway
brotherhood took matters into their
own hands, 1t was a wild country.
Reports reached the towns from time
to time of the mysterious disappear
ance Of a peon here and there along
the line of railway, but nothing was
ever seen of their bodies. 1t was as
much of a mystery to me as any one
until I solved it one dark night. was
on a train running toward Mexico City
when there was a jolt and the train
stopped. Going forward to see what
was the matter, | saw four of the
train crew take the ~lifeless body Of a
peon from under the wheels and carry
it to the lomotive cab. When the train
was well under way the firebox door
was opened and the body bundled in
and consumed. Now that railroad
tracks are multiplying in Mexico, the
poems are learning caution and deaths
and mysterious disappearance are
less frequent than they formerly
were"