royal messenger, or shifting a landmark. The laws against drunkenness were particularly strict; in the case of the young this offence was often punished with death, the accused, if of low rank, being publicly clubbed to death so that his fate might serve as an example. Rank could not save a man, though it gave him the privilege of being executed in private. Less aggravated cases were punished by degradation in the case of a noble, accompanied by public hair-cutting and the destruction of the culprit's house. Only the elderly were permitted the free use of octli, though men over thirty were allowed a moderate supply at festivals and when engaged upon hard manual labour. In other cases special permission had to be obtained from some official superior before the intoxicating liquor could be drunk without fear of punishment. These regulations, though severe, were extremely salutary, a fact which is proved by the outburst of drunkenness which took place after the conquest, when the old régime was swept away. Punishment was often inflicted upon a tributary town by demanding victims for sacrifice, as in the case of Quiauiztlan in Vera Cruz, the inhabitants of which were ordered to provide twenty men and women for this fate because they had received the Spaniards. The Tarascan ruler, at the time of the greatest development of the Michoacan peoples, was assisted in government by two ministers analogous to the Mexican Ciuacoatl and Tlacatecatl respectively. The judicial code was much the same, though little definite is known concerning it save that the death penalty was inflicted for the wrongful appropriation of land, the head of the criminal being set up on the violated boundary. Among the Chichimec, adultery was punished with death, each member of the tribal group shooting four arrows at the guilty couple. The Mexicans held slaves, or rather bondsmen, in some numbers, and the slave-class consisted of criminals, prisoners of war, and
