e. When the Mexicans first took to civil wars, the victorious
leader used to finish the contest by having his adversary shot. At the
time of our visit, this fashion had gone out; and the victor treated
the vanquished with great leniency, not unmindful of the time when he
might be in a like situation himself.

Whether the President ever got much of the forced contribution from the
clergy, I cannot say. At any rate, they have turned him out since; and
for a very poor government have substituted mere chaotic anarchy, as
Mr. Carlyle would call it. While the siege was going on, all the
commerce between Vera Cruz and the capital was interrupted, and, of
course, trade and manufacturing felt the effects severely. Nothing
shews the capabilities of the country more clearly than the fact that,
in spite of its distracted state and continual wars, its industrial
interests seem to be gaining ground steadily, though very slowly. The
evil of these ceaseless wars and revolutions is not that great battles
are here fought, cities destroyed, and men sacrificed by thousands.
Perhaps in no country in the world are "decisive victories,"
"sanguinary engagements," "brilliant attacks," and the like, got over
with less loss of life. Incredible as it may seem to any one who knows
how many civil wars and revolutions occur in the history of the country
for the last four or five years, I should not wonder if the number of
persons killed during that time in actual battle was less than the
number of those deliberately assassinated, or killed in private
quarrels.

Cheap as Mexican revolutions are in actual bloodshed, we must recollect
what they bring with them. Thousands of deserters prowling about the
country, robbing and murdering, and spreading everywhere the precious
lessons they have learnt in barracks. We know something in England of
the good moral influence that garrisons and recruiting sergeants carry
about with them; and can judge a little what must be the result of the
spreading of numbers of these fellows over a country where there is
nothing to restrain their excesses! As for the soldiers themselves, one
does not wonder at their deserting, for they are in great part pressed
men, earned off from their homes, and shut up in barracks till they
have been drilled, and are considered to be tamed; and moreover their
pay, as one may judge from the general state of the military finances,
is anything but regular. People who understand such matters, s