When a new member was added to the royal family of Spain the notice
was clipped from a foreign paper, in which it stated clearly that
the Queen Regent Christina had given birth to a boy baby. Yet it was
headed: "Is it a Boy?" When it grew a little colder than usual in an
interior town, they headed the item: "A Mexican Town in Danger." When
Roswell P. Flower, of New York, returned from his trip to Mexico he was
interviewed by some reporter, and while he said nothing in Mexico's
favor he said nothing against it; so they headed the clipping: "He
Loves Mexico." Moralizing is quite customary, at least with the English
paper. After quoting an item from _La Patria_ about a married pair
quarreling go fiercely that the mother-in-law took bilious fever and
died, it gave a sermon entitled: "Let not your angry passions rise." On
another occasion, speaking of the criminal list being unusually large
for the last month, it broke out with: "Oh, pulque, pulque, what evils
are committed under thine influence! And yet, verily, thou art a most
excellent aid to digestion."
All the papers which I know of are subsidized by the government,
and, until within several months ago, they were paid to abstain from
attacks on the government. This subsidy has stopped, through want of
funds, but the papers say nothing against the government, as they care
too much for their easy lives; so they circulate among foreigners
misrepresenting all Mexican affairs, and putting everything in a fair
but utterly false light. The Mexicans have nothing but contempt for the
papers, and the newspaper men have no standing whatever, not even level
with the government officials, whose tools they are. If a newspaper
even hints that government affairs could be bettered, the editors are
thrown into prison, too filthy for brutes, until they die or swear
never to repeat the offense. The papers containing the so-called
libelous items are all hunted up by the police and destroyed, and the
office and type are destroyed. These arrests are not unusual; indeed
they are of frequent occurrence. While in Mexico I knew of at least one
man being sent to jail every two weeks; they are taken by force, in the
most peculiar manner for a country which lays claim to having laws, not
to speak of being a republic. Just for an imaginary offense in their
writings, they are remanded to prison, and are kept in dark and dirty
cells, shut off from connection with the world without trial, without
even enough to eat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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