further investigation." Such was the justice one could get under these men; but it was really comical to see the complainant’s face at such summary methods. On another occasion I went to see him about one of my men that I had discharged, and who had gone up to my office and scared my clerk nearly into a fit by waving a pistol and saying he wanted to kill me. Cabrera asked me if I had a pistol, and on my replying in the affirmative he said, “Then it is very simple, you shoot him the first time you see him near your office, before he can shoot you.” I told him that was all right, but I did not want to get into jail. “No,” he said, “that need not bother you, as he has threatened your life before witnesses.” I happened to meet this man a day or two later on the street, and went up to him and said I had heard he was looking for trouble, and that Colonel Cabrera had told me to shoot him if he came near my office. But he denied all enmity, &c., &c. I have always found it best to tackle these cases at once, for if you do not treat them with a high hand you are liable to get shot in the back some night. From Puebla I went to Chihuahua to take charge of a contract there. The town and state of Chihuahua used to be run by what was known as the Royal Family. The head of the family is Terrazas, who owns in ranches almost the entire state, and the balance of the family consists of the Creels, the Munoz, and the Quilty, and I was told that there were 116 first cousins. All these, of course, had to have a living, and they were all provided for. One of them was building a large edifice at the time I was there, and was using one of the principal streets as his stoneyard to cut the stone for the building. He had the street closed to traffic, and was getting along very comfortably; unfortunately, this street was one that was in our contract to be paved. When we had completed nearly all the other streets we asked him to please move out and let us in, and his answer was, “I wish to get my work completed by a certain date. Naturally it will inconvenience you, but that cannot be helped. Of course if you think that you can have me moved, why, go ahead and try, but I think you will find that I am a man of some importance.” So the interview closed, and we found that he was indeed of some importance, and that nothing could be done. I was told that the only way to go into business up there was to get some member of the family in with you, and the facts bear this out. They own the street car-lines, the brewery, the lumber-yard, the brick-yard, the biscuit company, the electric power and light company, and the slaughterhouse, and if they missed anything it was because it was not worth having. Yet, with it all, possibly because of it, the town is a very busy one, though it was this state of affairs, and the way things were run in Puebla, that brought about the revolution. The people had nothing to lose, and might gain by a change of government.