out, and then they find that they are indeed prisoners. They are told that they are in debt and will be held until they work out their debt. A few days later the door opens and they file out. They find that rurales are all about them. They are marched through a back street to a railroad station, where they are put upon the train. They try to get away, but it is no use; they are prisoners. In a few days they are in Valle Nacional.
Usually the laborer caught in this way is taken through the formality of signing a contract. He is told that he is to get a good home, good food, and one, two or three dollars a day wages for a period of six months or a year. A printed paper is shoved under his nose and the enganchandor rapidly points out several alluring sentences written thereon. A pen is put quickly into his hand and he is told to sign in a hurry. The five dollars advance fee is given him to clinch the bargain and put him in debt to the agent. He is usually given a chance to spend this, or a part of it, usually for clothing or other necessaries in order that he may be unable to pay it back when he discovers that he has been trapped. The blanks on the printed contract—fixing the wages, etc.—are usually filled out afterwards by the labor agent or the consignee.
In Mexico City and other large centers of population there are permanently maintained places called casas de los enganchadores (houses of the snarers). They are regularly known to the police and to large slave buyers of the hot lands. Yet they are nothing more nor less than private jails into which are enticed laborers, who are held there against their will until such time as they are sent away in gangs guarded by the police powers of the government.
A third method employed by the labor agent is outright kidnapping. I have heard of many cases of the
