that the authorities had more important business in hand than paying legal functionaries.[1]
This was obviously wrong, but in a sense the judges merited such treatment, for they seem to have lacked even the most necessary qualifications. To make the situation still worse, the executive authorities had a Way of stepping in and perverting justice arbitrarily. Even the Mexicans were accustomed to say, "A bad compromise is better than a good case at law"; but it was naturally aliens who suffered most. "The great and positive evil which His Majesty's subjects, in common with other Foreigners, have to complain of in this country is the corrupt and perverse administration of justice," reported the minister of England in 1834:[2]
Criminal law was executed no better than civil. The police of the city are a complete nullity, stated the American representative in 1845. A fault, a vice and a crime were treated alike; and the prisons, always crowded with wrongdoers of every class, became schools in depravity, from which nearly all, however bad, escaped in the end to prey upon society. Well known robbers not only went about in safety, but were treated with kindly attentions even by their late Victims, for all understood that if denounced and punished. they would sooner or later go free, and have their revenge.[3]
Adverting formally before Congress in 1841 to the "notoriously defective" administration of justice, the Mexican President said, "the root of the evil lies in the deplorable corruption which pervades all classes of society and in the absence of any corrective arising from public opinion." In large measure this condition of things was chargeable to the low state of religion, but in part it could be attributed to the want of education. Spain had required people to think as little as possible, keep still and obey orders; and for such a rôle enlightenment seemed unnecessary and even dangerous. To read and write a little and keep accounts fairly well was about enough secular knowledge for anybody, and the catechism of Father Ripalda, which enjoined the duty of blind obedience to the King and the Pope, completed the circle of useful erudition. In the small towns, as there were few elementary schools. even these attainments could not easily be gained; and as for the Indians they were merer taught—with a whip at the Church door. if necessary
