but we have confined our observations in this work, exclusively to those painful exhibitions which cannot fail to strike a stranger as disadvantageous both to intellectual progress and the pure and spiritual adoration of God. The mixture of antique barbaric show and Indian rites, may have served to attract the native population at the first settlement of the country; but their continuance is in keeping neither with the spirit of the age nor the necessities of a republic. While the priesthood has contrived, in the course of centuries, to attract the wealth of multitudes, and to make itself, in various ways, the richest proprietor of the nation, the people have been impoverished and continued ignorant. Not content with the natural influence possessed by a church whose members are spread all over the republic, the hierarchy of Mexico, has exacted a constitutional recognition not only of its permanence, but of its right to exclude all other faiths, and all other religious reunions for worship. It appears, therefore, just that in such a republic it was the duty of the Roman church voluntarily to unfetter its wealth, to reform its priesthood, to sweep into the public coffers the useless jewels that adorn the altars and statues, yet do not glorify the Almighty; and to imitate the virtues, resolution and self-denial of its ministers in our country, who, while blending themselves in politics and public spirit most effectually with the masses, have devoted their lives to the education of people of all creeds and classes for support and independence. "Far from the goods of the church being exempted because they are consecrated to God," says Vattel in his immortal work, "it is for that very reason that they should be the first taken for the welfare of the state. There is nothing more agreeable to the common Father of men than to preserve a nation from destruction. As God has no need of property, the consecration of goods to him, is their devotion to such purposes as are pleasant to him. Besides,--the property of the church, by the confession of the clergy themselves, is chiefly destined for the poor; and when the state is in want, it is, doubtless, the first pauper, and the worthiest of succor."[37] CHAPTER XII. CONSTITUTIONS AND LAWS. VARIOUS CHANGES OF THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTION.--PRESENT ORGANIZATION OF THE NATIONAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS.--CONSTITUTION OF 1847.--LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIARY--NATIONAL AND STATE.--JUDICIARY--ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE--CIVIL AND CRIMINAL PROCESS--MAL-ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.--PRISONS--CRIME--ACCORDADA.--CONDITION OF PRISONS.--STATISTICS OF CRIME IN THE CAPITAL--GARROTTE.--MEXICAN OPINIONS.