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Page:The Story of Mexico.djvu/281

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HIDALGO.
249

straggling patriots from other countries. Moreover, the lands between the Rio Grande and the new republic were but a wilderness, in which a little handful of men, however brave, however independent, might easily have perished by starvation or cold. The death that came upon them was martyrdom to their cause, more efficient as an incentive to future patriotism than lives of prolonged incomplete effort.

The Alhóndiga de Grenaditas is now used for a prison. In its walls is still to be seen the spike from which for ten years hung the head of Hidalgo. Before the entrance stands a bronze statue of the first liberator of his country.