official superior before the intoxicating liquor could be drunk without fear of punishment. These regulations, though severe, were extremely salutary, a fact which is proved by the outburst of drunkenness which took place after the conquest, when the old _régime_ was swept away. Punishment was often inflicted upon a tributary town by demanding victims for sacrifice, as in the case of Quiauiztlan in Vera Cruz, the inhabitants of which were ordered to provide twenty men and women for this fate because they had received the Spaniards. The Tarascan ruler, at the time of the greatest development of the Michoacan peoples, was assisted in government by two ministers analogous to the Mexican Ciuacoatl and Tlacatecatl respectively. The judicial code was much the same, though little definite is known concerning it save that the death penalty was inflicted for the wrongful appropriation of land, the head of the criminal being set up on the violated boundary. Among the Chichimec, adultery was punished with death, each member of the tribal group shooting four arrows at the guilty couple. The Mexicans held slaves, or rather bondsmen, in some numbers, and the slave-class consisted of criminals, prisoners of war, and individuals sold into slavery. Persons in extreme poverty could pledge themselves or their children, and we read that in the reign of Montecuzoma many of the better-class families were reduced to such straits by a famine lasting two years that they fell into slavery. By orders of the king these unfortunates were sought out and ransomed by him at twice the price paid for them. It is said that the sale of a slave required two witnesses, and that slaves could not be sold without their own permission, except those who wore heavy wooden collars as runaways or insubordinate. A peculiar form of slavery existed, in accordance with which an indigent family could bind itself to supply one or more slaves perpetually to some lord, the individual in servitude being changed every few years. If a slave-woman died as the result of an intrigue with a free man, the latter became the slave of her master; but if a child was born and both survived, it became the property of the father and was free-born. Slaves were well treated on the whole, though they were liable to be sacrificed. They were considered as under the protection of Tezcatlipoca, and at one of his feasts were accorded absolute licence as at the Roman Saturnalia. CHAPTER VI--MEXICO: CRAFTS, DRESS, AND DAILY LIFE