THE VILLAGE OF MADMEN

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1928, Page 1

THE VILLAGE OF MADMEN

(lly FRANCES MeCULLAGU, the Special Correspondent and World Traveller.) .MEXICO CITY, Dec. HO. .Mexico is not generally regarded as one of the humorous countries of the world, but it is humorous, though its humour is generally of the unconscious kind. Let me give some specimens: A general in Chihuahua once received from the War Office five million pesos wherewith to pay his troops. It was somewhat of a surprise, for he had never before received any money for that purpose, and had lived on the country,’’ as the phrase goes. When he had got over the shock he hastened to Kl Paso, Texas, and deposited the money, under his own name, in an American bank. Feeling, on his way back, that he Had to give his soldiers .something, especially as it was near Christmas time, he seized a train laden with merchandise which was waiting in the station at Juarez and had it brought to Chihuahua, where he discovered, to his disappointment, that it was full of toilet soap—an article of luxury which this hardy warrior had always regarded with contempt. I here was nothing else, however, so calling his soldiers together, he said to them : ‘ I have no money for you, my children, but here is plenty of soap. It’s yours. Sell it and make all you can out df it, or alternatively, eat it. or boil your blasted heads in it ; I don’t care what you do with it.” For the next two weeks soldiers with basketfuls of soap were traversing ( hiliuahua in all dlirertions, oll’ering it. for sale: but none of them ever thought of using it on himself. Among the loneliest places on God's earth are some of the little inland towns of .Mexico. I recently visited one such town- we shall call iL Sail Plus where the people seemed to be rusting away from laziness and boredom and where the traffic was so small that cacti and sage brush and other weeds were growing in the one wretched street. There was an o! church, but the roof was lull of holes, so I concluded that the padre had lied at the beginning of the conflict between Church and Stale a year ago; and in this impression I was coulirnied by a

visit to the dilapidated rectory, which 1 found not it living soul. The one or two tumbledown sir seemed to have been deserted by th owners; but, in any case, they I nothing to offer save a few wither* ! petrified, and fly-blown objects thatli been rendered useless by age. H it not been for an emaciated pig a the animated skeleton of a horse should have thought that the place i\ uninhabited. It was literally aOl horse village ; though I am afraid th it will soon lose that designation. 1 the horse in question is on its la legs. .Nevertheless that quadruped one of the principal characters in t story I am going to tell. Seeing some smoke rising from t chimney of an adobe but, and deduct therefrom the presence of human li; I investigated. I discovered an ag crone who gave me to understand th her establishment was a fonda or prill live hotel ; but all she had in the w: of food was one egg and some boa and maize. While I was regaling m self of this fare, and afterwards whi I was trying to got some fodder for n horse. I met several other villagers ai collected from them various facts alar .San Ulus. There were old silver mines within league oT it, but they had not bet worked since colonial times. The v lage had originally been colonised 1 Castilians who tried to maintain tl purity of their blood, with the resn that inbreeding brought degenerac, and most of the present generation ai idiots, in fact, 1 do not think th; there was a sane person in the villa* with the exception of an old goner; and three or four tatterdemalion so itici*s who lived in a gaol that had on< been a monastery. There was only or prisoner in the gaol, and he had bee there so long that everybody, inelndin himself, had forgotten why and whe lie was sent, there. As lor the general, lie was a who .cries of dignitaries rolled into onogovernor of the penitentiary, Ci.O.t I mops, commander- in-ehief of the gai •ison ' three men all told), mayor, posi mister, chief of police, and half a doze >ther functionaries; but in none i lliese did lie receive any pay. The principal employment of th irisoner consisted of crossing an a< acent lake every day in order to cu ;rass for the general’s horse, lie rmve limself across in a leaky boat, and wa .always accompanied by a soldier, wli carried a scythe, as well as a rifle am a bandolier full of cartridges. One da the prisoner returned alotie with 11 se.vtlie, the rille, the bandolier, air the usual quantity of grass—but with out the soldier. The soldier bail de sorted. He was young, and the mono tony of San Dias was probably to< inlich for him ; at all events, be wa; never seen again. Then the echoes of the somnolent village were awakened by the lanugagi of the general to the prisoner for let ling the soldier escape! Caramba Never, never, would be, the general have believed such a tiling possible. Onion tal diseurriora ? Had be not been as a father to Isidro? Had lie not trusted this picl del diahln? Had ever prisoner been better treated!" Why. then, had the brihonnzo permitted this thing to happen!' N’ombre de Dios! Ii was treason, treachery ingratitude. la mas negra ingratitud! This great event bad occurred a year before my arrival, but it • was still the common topic ol conversation. |{e- •: ••I'lLiollUM di till '’am es in Mox'co City and elsewhere t Inoughnot the Kepuhic were dismissed a. comparatively unimportant events. .My landlady, herself a mild mental case, assured me that the general has not been quite right in bis bead since ; hut die prisoner seems to have been restored to favour, for as 1 loft the village next morning I met him and a ragged soldier carrying a bundle ol grass from the leaky boat to the I’ciiilcntiaria.