WHAT A MEXICAN MERCHANT HAS TO SAY OF THE ACAPULCO MASSACRE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 108, 22 May 1875, Page 15

WHAT A MEXICAN MERCHANT HAS TO SAY OF THE ACAPULCO MASSACRE.

(Prom the ' San Francisco Monitor,' March G.) General Rosecbans brought to the office of tha ' Post,' Friday, February 28th, a Mexican gentleman, Don Juan Huarte, formerly a merchant of Acapulco, but now residing in Colima, who is recently fiom Mexico, and who is acquainted with the parties and circumstances of the Acapulco massacre. General Rosecrans knew him in Mexico, and vouches for his reliability. Don Juan Huarte's account of the affair is as follows : The widow of Senor Rosales built a chapel in Acapulco on her own property for her own devotion and for her son, who was educated and ordained a priest in the city of Mexico, but who died some two years afterwards, leaving his sister, Manuela, now married to a merchant who lives in a small town north of Acapulco. Pocopio Diaz, the leader of the Protestant movement, has lived for twenty years in this neighbourhood, and has made his living as a clerk. He has published ten to fifteen numbers of a scurrilous anti-Catholic sheet. Procopio Diaz wrote to Mr. Hutchinson, in. Mexico, that all the people of Acapulco were ready to receive a Protestant pastor; but on Ms arrival in Acapulco Mr. Hutchinson' publicly stated that DIAZ HAD DECEIVED HIM. The only members of the Protestant congregation were twenty to thirty stevedores. Don Huarte further states that it is publicly notorious that Diaz received two dollars a day for his services to the Protestant minister. On settling in Acapulco Mr. Hutchinson applied to the Gefe Politico for the use of the chapel belonging to the Rosales family, and the Gefe assigned it to the Protestan mission. Diaz, in his little paper, immediately began a series of libellous articles against the parish priest, accusing him of idolatry, sinning, selling the sacraments, absolution and communion, of being a debauched character, etc. The American Consul at Acapulco testified to the irreproachable morals and integrity of this priest, Pedro Justi, and Mr. Hutchinson likewise acknowledged that no evidences whatever could be found to implicate him in the conspiracy. Mr. Hutchinson was guilty of- the deplorable imprudence of speaking on the streets against the most cherished belief of Catholics, affirming tha,t the blessed Virgin was the mother of seven other children, that she was not the mother of God, etc. WITH RESPECT TO THE FIGHT Senor Huarte states : That Hutchinson was warned by his friends of the storm excited, and the personal dislike to his own obnoxious proceedings. On the morning of the fray he received notice of the danger, but affected illness. At 1 o'clock p.m. Diaz called for him, and said that the congregation were waiting for him to come up and preach. Mr. Hutcliinson declined on the score of his sickness, The congregation was prepared for the fight, and well armed with pistols. An American fruit dealer, at present in this city, who has been for some ten years in Acapulco, and is well known there as a Protestant, met the crowd of Catholic Indians going to the church, and saluted them. They answered him by name, and offered no violence. This gentleman said to Senor Huarte : " I take great pleasure in saying to you that this mob was not against Protestantism, but against Hu^chinson and Diaz. lam a Protestant, and nothing has ever been done to injure me." The attacking party, amounting to about fifty-nine, entered the church, and the fight then occurred as ha 3 been generally stated. Don Huarte states that the Catholic people of Acapulco, while strongly reprobating the conduct of the mob, are indignant at the false imputations and insinuations against the parish priest, and at the attempt to make the American people look upon this affray as a conspiracy of intelligent Catholics.