196
BARBAROUS MEXICO
being held incommunicado, where they would remain until after the election.
"Election day" found soldiers or rurales in every town and hamlet. Booths were actually put up here and there and a farce of an election was gone through with. Soldiers held the polls and every man who dared cast a ballot for any but the administration ticket knew that he was risking imprisonment, confiscation of property, even death, in doing so. Finally, the government went through the form of counting the vote, and in due course of time the world was told that the Mexican people had proved "practically unanimous" in their choice of Diaz and Corral.
