"Of course!" he said, "I never thought of that." Not long after this incident General Guayubin met a political opponent against whom he harbored resentment. He immediately drew his revolver and began to shoot, and the object of his wrath escaped only by dexterous sprinting. At a session of Congress there was some criticism of his action and Guayubin resigned his office in disgust. The death of this fighter was as stern as his life. He attended a christening party at a house where there was a forgotten powder-cask; a spark fell into the powder and in the ensuing explosion Guayubin's eyesight was destroyed. Grimly refusing to take food or drink, he pined away. Prior to the American occupation, the Dominican penal establishments were as a rule in very bad condition. There is no penitentiary and portions of the forts or government houses are used as jails. The prisoners were herded together with little thought of cleanliness. The stench in some of the jail yards was at times almost unbearable. In justice it should be stated that the Dominican authorities frequently called the attention of their Congress to this condition of affairs. The prisons at Santo Domingo City and Santiago were exceptions to the rule; they were improved even to the extent of being endowed with a prison school. The political prisoners were generally given better accommodations, if there were any at hand, and had the privilege of securing their meals from the outside instead of being limited to the scant and repugnant prison food. During revolutions, however, when the prisons were overcrowded, the political prisoners were kept in irons and supervision was rigid. According to law the functionaries of each court of first instance were supposed to visit and examine the jails once a month, but as the date of their visit was known beforehand the inspection was little more than perfunctory. Not very long ago it was whispered in the Cibao that a judge in inspecting a jail accidentally passed through a door to a room he was evidently not expected to enter, and there to his own embarrassment and that of the warden found a score of prisoners whose names were not on the prison rolls.