from infancy by attendance
on bull-fights. A foreigner that had been by special grace licensed to
visit Mexico, was considered a fortunate prize, for to offer a
foreigner as a human sacrifice was in accordance with the ancient
custom of the Aztecs. There was only one foreigner who amassed great
wealth, and that was Laborde the miner, who bought his peace by
building the Cathedral of Toluca.

There was nothing to interest a stranger in the empty halls where once
these legalized murderers had held their nightly meetings, and I
wandered away toward the prison and the place of torture, where, inch
by inch, the life had been torn from the victims of priestly vengeance.
I shuddered as I entered the prison door-way, though fifty years had
passed since the last and most distinguished of its victims had entered
here, the Vice-king Iturrigaray. Here, too, the hand of the
white-washer had been busy, and the cells were now made comfortable
rooms for the soldiery. The instruments of torture were all carefully
removed from the place of torture, and the room bore no marks of the
shocking scenes which had here so often transpired. Here poor Rame, the
Frenchman, had dragged out his long imprisonment, and here William
Lamport, the unfortunate Irish victim, prepared himself for death. But
Lamport's story is worth giving in full, to illustrate the scenes.

STORY OF WILLIAM LAMPORT.

William Lamport was an Irishman by birth, and must have been a Roman
Catholic, or he could not have obtained a license to visit Mexico. He
was probably one of that large class of Irish Catholics who emigrated
to Spain in order to enjoy their religion more freely than they could
at home, under English oppression. It was probably two intercepted
letters that cost this Irishman his life. His accusation sets forth
that he was the author of two writings, in one of which "things were
said against the Holy Office, its erection, style, mode of process,
&c., in such a manner that, in the whole of it, not a word was to be
found that was not deserving of reprehension, not only as being
injurious, but also insulting to our holy Catholic faith." The
Prosecuting Attorney (_fiscal_) says of the other writing "that it
contained detestable bitterness of language, and contumelies so filled
with poison as to manifest the heretical spirit of the author, and his
bitter hatred against the Holy Office." Let his fate be a warning to
all traveling letter-writers who are disposed t