The Land of the “Lex Talionis.”

During the quarter of a century preceding the annexation of New Mexico to the United States, that distant province of the Mexican Republic, like all the rest of the country, was the scene of constantly recurring revolutions. Every discontented captain, colonel, or general who chanced to be in command of a district, there held sway as a dictator; so demeaning himself that martial and military rule had become established as the living law of the land. The civic authorities rarely possessed more than the semblance of power; and where they did it was wielded in the most flagitious manner. Arbitrary arts were constantly committed, under the pretext of patriotism or duty. No man’s life was safe who fell under the displeasure of the ruling military chieftain; and woman’s honour was held in equally slight respect.

In the northern frontier provinces of the republic this irresponsible power of the soldiery was peculiarly despotic and harassing. There, two causes contributed to establish and keep it in the ascendency. One of these was the revolutionary condition of the country, which, as elsewhere, had become chronic. The contest between the party of the priests and that of the true patriots, begun in the first days of Mexico’s independence, has been continued ever since; now one, now the other, in the ascendant. The monstrous usurpation of Maximilian, supported by Napoleon the Third, and backed by a soldier whom all Mexicans term the “Bandit Bazaine,” was solely due to the hierarchy; while Mexico owes its existing Republican government to the patriot party—happily, for the time, triumphant.

The province of New Mexico, notwithstanding its remoteness from the nation’s capital, was always affected by, and followed, its political fortunes. When the parti prêtre was in power at the capital, its adherents became the rulers in the distant States for the time being; and when the Patriots, or Liberals, gained the upper hand this rôle was reversed.

It is but just to say that, whenever the latter were the “ins,” things for the time went well. Corruption, though not cured, was to some extent checked; and good government would begin to extend itself over the land. But such could only last for a brief period. The monarchical, dictatorial, or imperial party—by whatever name it may be known—was always the party of the Church; and this, owning three-fourths of the real estate, both in town and country, backed by ancient ecclesiastical privileges, and armed with another powerful engine—the gross superstition it had been instrumental in fostering—was always able to control events; so that no Government, not despotic, could stand against it for any great length of time. For all, freedom at intervals triumphed, and the priests became the “outs;” but ever potent, and always active, they would soon get up a new “grito” to bring about a revolutionary change in the Government. Sanguinary scenes would be enacted—hangings, shooting, garrottings—all the horrors of civil war that accompany the bitterest of all spite, the ecclesiastical.

In such an uncertain state of things it was but natural that the militarios should feel themselves masters of the situation, and act accordingly.

In the northern districts they had yet another pretext for their unrestrained exercise of power—in non............