The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1915-09-22
LUST SEEING man
n SHOT IN MEXICO
Is a Mere Diversion With
IS the People.
A HOLIDAY CROWD IN CAPITAL
Sees'FeIlow Executed Who Be-
came Counterfeiter To
Save His Family.
A STAY IN THE PROCEEDINGS

Mexico City, Sept. 11.-Many
thousand persons made holiday to
see Rafael Mesa shot to death for
counterfeiting "cartones," or printed
currency. Human life is held so
cheaply in Mexico that the passing
of the unfortunate Mesa would be
scarcely worth chronicling did not
the attending circumstances project
it in relief against the background
of welter and bloodshed which has
come to be casual and commonplace
in the eyes of foreign residents.
Mesa was a clerk until depression
in business cost him his job. He was
a well educated middle class Mexi-
can, about forty years old, married
and the father of three children. Oc-
casionally he found little work and
the kinsfolk of the family helped
them as much as they could, but
wings grew worse and worse, and
money must be had or the family
would starve.
Mesa was clever with the pen. so
he turned counterfeiter. He drew
10Th pen and ink on pasteboard of
the proper size and color. limitations
of the 5 and 10 centavo cartones IS
sued to take the place of the cop
per, nickel and silver coins. Thous-
tnds of pen-and-ink counterfeits are
in circulation, and unless they are
too crude they pass current without
question.
Mesa could turn out in day pos
sibly the worth of peso, or peso
md a half, of these spurious car
tones, of gold value of about 10
cents.
One of his children offered
counterfeit to Spanish shopkeeper,
who instantly detected the fraud.
Where did you get this?" he de-
manded of the child.
They are made by my father"
responded the child. without realiz-
ing the tragic consequences of that
answer.
The Spaniard seized the child by
the arm and shouted for a gendarme
who was lounging outside the shop.
Thence to the nearest comisario.
There the child was failed with tor
rental questions, shaken, terrified
into weaving an inexorable web of
evidence about the luckless Mesa,
Later the police crept upon the Mesa
house silently. They caught the
man. pen in hand. About him were
scattered red and blue pasteboards
covered with irrefutable evidences
of his guilt. His wife. who sat by,
was arrested with Mesa and accused
of aiding him.
!, Mesa acknowledged his guilt,
pleading poverty. He absolved his
wife, but she was condemned with
him. The military authorities said
Mesa must die. His wife. for causes
(which could hardly have failed to APP
peal successfully to the clemency of
her judges, was freed.
Near noon the next day soldiers
hurried themselves into the mass of
people outside the comisario and
cleaved narrow, open path for the
condemned man and his escort.
Mesa, with bound arms. paused an
instant in the doorway and bowed
xo the crowd. Up one street. into
another, and around a corner into
third passed the procession. until
ii came to the Peralvillo race track.
Close at Mesa's elbow trotted little
priest mumbling prayers, his face
shining with sweat and his black
robes tapping in the dust of the
street.
On one. side of spacious field
stood small adobe house. A flank