The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-07-04

This Rubi hated "gringoes," but he
found no excuse for killing them +;
he vented his spite upon the inmates
l,of the ~penitentiary. who were nearly
all political prisoners awaiting execu-
ton.
l talked with a young fellow with
whom they played a game that
pleased them nightly. This boy was
a brother OF Carranza's Minister OF
Foreign Relations. Each evening he
was told that he would be shot in the
morning: in the morning they placed
him against a wall with the daily
batch for execution. The firing squad
took their aim and fired-but they
spared the boy. Each morning this
young nan faced a row of levelled
rifles and saw his fellow prisoners
die, each morning he went through
the ordcal OF approaching death.
When Villa e north. after defeat,
he took h boy along so that the
joke might he kept up
After the defeat at Celaya, Rubi
came riding into town with n half
dozen companions; l saw them from
my hotel window. They were shoot
ing right and left. yelling and cursing
that they were going to get a few
"gringoes" before they left. Rubi
sighted a couple of unorending peon
followers to shoot them. The drunken
soldiers tied the boys back to back
and stood them in the open for execu-
ton; the boys started to run and the
soldiers were so drunk that they could
not hit them: they shot wildly
through the crowded streets and
finally brought down the fleeing boys.
In Tuxpan. which lies between Vera
Cruz ard Tampico. and Is in the pos
session of the Carranza forces, there
is an oil company which employs n
number of foreigners. AS always, a
squad of soldiers "a billeted on the
I place ~ortensibly as n guard. but really
to mulct the foreigners. Recently an
attack came from n Villa contingent;
the defenders at once rushed among
the women and children in the houses
instead OF trying to take the battle
out of the town.
The foreign population took refuge
under a house to avoid the bullets.
Eight Of them were shot and five
killed. including n English woman /:
their casualties were greater than
those of the combatants. Only one
man in every hundred is ordinarily
wounded in IA Mexican battle, and II Is
extraordinary that these people could
have been hot except by the DELHI
crate intent of the Carranzistas.
Ordinary murder is SO common that
IT pa IS without m II the muir
dcred man is n native. | belicv tina
three times as many men and women
have been murdered as have been lost
N battle.
Property Is destroyed even more
freely me wantonly han human life ::
the armies leave a swath of desolatiOn
behind them. for that which is not
used is destroyed.
travelled for five days with Gen.
Murguia and his army. There were
5000 men, and ! do not know how
many and children. The
women and children constitute the
comm!ssary: there is no organized
quartermaster's department., they
steal everything that is loose. The
horses are turned into the growing
fields and what the soldiers do not
eat they destroy. Behind our
march was a lane as desolate as the
path Of "a tornado; there vas not "A
living thing, not a blade of grass to be
seen.
A few weeks ago | sat with Gen.
Obregon in his private car In the
fertile valley of Celaya; through the
| windows ! could see more than ten
thousand cavalry horses grazing in