For three centuries a Spanish convict station was kept in Porto Rico. The unpleasant and undesirable found, not a welcome here, but a more congenial company than in the home land. Life was easier because one needed less food and clothes, and they were furnished by the authorities, anyway. What with the convicts and discontented slaves, it is a wonder that any sort of comfort or safety existed on the island, and especially that so much of pleasant social life was to be found in the cities. Those who knew Porto Rico in those days, however, say that class distinctions were not sharply marked; that the master was kind to the slave, and the slave felt as if he were a member of his master's family, rather than a dependent; that the two were often seen at the cockpit sitting elbow to elbow, kneeling side by side in the same church, greeting the same friends or cracking the heads of the same enemies before the church doors at Epiphany, and in the humbler homes sitting at the same table. In those simple times the robber gangs were a great vexation. Killing was something to grow used to, and a disagreement over cards was liable to result in having one's head snipped off by a machete; but to be robbed of one's machete, or of one's jug of rum, or of one's only trousers, was a sad affliction, and soldiers and police were as active as Spanish functionaries could persuade themselves to be, in running down--or walking down--these outlaws. It is said that the detectives were especially amusing. They would go about in such obvious disguises, with misfit wigs, window-glass spectacles, and the costumes of priests or notaries, that a robber could barely keep his countenance when he met them in the street. The thief always escaped, either through the incompetence of the officers, or by sharing his profits with them. But there was one fellow who made such trouble that the police began to chafe beneath the public criticism. To impugn their honor did not hurt them much, though they ruffled a good deal under it, but to threaten them with reduction of pay or removal was a serious matter; so the chief of the San Juan constabulary bestirred himself, after a particularly daring robbery had occurred in his bailiwick, the rogue making off with six thousand dollars' worth of jewelry. He got safely away from town and was traced to Humacao, where his footprints were found leading to the door of a small, tumble-down, deserted house, and none of these prints could be seen with toes pointing away from it. The chief dismissed his men and prepared to conduct a siege. He had a dagger, a machete, two pistols, and a gun, with a box of ammunition. Thus equipped he went to the front door, gave it a sounding whack with the flat of his machete, and bawled, "Open, in the name of the law!"