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The pistol to the bosom or head of woman, the patient mother, the trembling daughter, was the ordinary introduction to the demand: "Your gold, silver, watch, jewels!" They gave no time, allowed no pause or hesitation. It was in vain that the woman offered her keys, or proceeded to open drawer or wardrobe, or cabinet or trunk. It was dashed to pieces by axe or gun butt, with the cry, "We have a shorter way than that!" It was in vain that she pleaded to spare her furniture, and she would give up all its contents. All the precious things of a family; such as the heart loves to pore on in quiet hours when alone with memory-the dear miniature, the photograph, the portrait-these were dashed to pieces, crushed under foot, and the more the trembler pleaded for the object so precious, the more violent the rage which destroyed it. Nothing was sacred in their eyes save the gold and silver which they bore away. Nor were these acts those of common soldiers. Commissioned officers, of rank so high as that of colonel, were frequently among the most active in spoliation, and, after glutting themselves with spoil, would often utter the foulest speeches, coupled with oaths as condiment.

There are some horrors which the historian dare not pursue which the painter dare not delineate. They both drop the curtain over crimes which humanity bleeds to contemplate. * A lady, undergoing the pains of labor, had to be borne out

on a mattress into the open air, to escape the fire. It was in vain that her situation was described as the soldiers applied the torch within and without the house, after they had penetrated every chamber and robbed them of all that was either valuable or portable. They beheld the situation of the sufferer, and laughed to scorn the prayer for her safety.

Another lady, Mrs. J, was but recently confined. Her condition was very helpless. Her life hung upon a hair. The men were apprised of all the facts in the case. They burst into the chamber-took the rings from the lady's fingers-plucked the watch from beneath her pillow, and so overwhelmed her with terror, the she sunk under the treatment-surviving their departure but a day or two. In several instances, parlors, articles of crockery, and even beds, were used by the soldiers as if they were water-closets. In one case, a party used vessels in this way, then put them on the bed, fired at and smashed them to pieces, emptying the filthy contents over the bedding. In several cases, newly made graves were opened, the coffins taken out, broken open, in search of buried. treasure, and the corpses left exposed. Every spot in graveyard or garden, which seemed to have been recently disturbed, was sounded with sword, or bayonet, or ramrod, in their desperate search after spoil.

JEFFERSON DAVIS'S REGIMENT IN MEXICO.

[Extract from the New York Sun's Review of the Memoir of Jefferson Davis, by his wife.]

It was a fact well worth recording in this memoir that this regiment, from the Colonel down to the last private, returned home without a single article belonging to a citizen of Mexico. "The sacred silver and gold vessels and the church vestments studded over with precious stones were in an open room at Monterey and also at Saltillo. The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a large doll dressed in satin, was admired and examined, but left untouched, though the frock in which she was arrayed was worked in arabesques adorned with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds of great price, and she wore a necklace of immense pearls which were of several colors. Col. Davis saw one of the soldiers, in friendly conversation with an old priest, holding admiringly a gold reliquary, the top of which was rayed with diamonds, several hundred, he thought, altogether. The Mexicans felt and had perfect security for their property."

NORTHERN SOLDIERY IN MEXICO.

SECRET OF HIDDEN JEWELS REVEALED AFTER MANY

YEARS.

[From the New York Herald, Friday, December 26, 1902.]

TOLEDO, OHIO, Thursday.

A local paper says that Warren J. Baker, secretary of the Northwestern Ohio Masonic Relief Association,

made public to-day for the first time the secret history of the looting of Catholic cathedrals during the Mexican war. He tells how it was done and of the burial of the treasure. His tongue was loosened by a newspaper dispatch from Mexico City telling of the discovery of a chest of diamonds, sapphires, rubies, pearls and golden images beneath a flagstone in the chapel of Las Vozcainas College.

Mr. Baker says his father marched from Vera Cruz to Mexico City with General Scott's army. He and a tentmate, after plotting for weeks, dug their way into some of the richest cathedrals and pillaged them of their fabulous wealth of valuable stones and huge golden images, carrying their burdens of precious stones to a hiding place beneath the flagstones in a cathedral yard.

Mr. Baker's companion died soon afterward. Mr. Baker returned to his home in New York and then went to Hillsdale, Michigan. Fifteen years after plundering the cathedrals he confided his story to an intimate friend.

This friend wrote to the Mexican government, asking "If there would be any chance of a 'divvy' of the spoils" if he should tell the government where it could find the sacred and valuable altar decorations which had been stolen. In a letter bearing an official seal the Hillsdale man received warning that if he knew of any one who had a hand in the pillaging, or if he himself participated in it, he would do well to forget all he

knew about it and "keep mum," lest his life be sacri-
ficed in revenge for the desecration of cathedrals.

Mr. Baker took the advice, but still intended to
secure the treasure he had buried.

ADDENDUM B.

[Referred to on page 51.]

INTOLERANCE IN MASSACHUSETTS.

The reprehensible and un-American principle of
political and religious intolerance has ever found con-
genial soil in Massachusetts. The spirit of the fathers
there descended to the sons, and accordingly we find
the notorious Hartford Convention (dominated by
Massachusetts men) insisting that the Federal Consti-
tution be amended so that no person naturalized
thereafter could be eligible as a member of the Senate
or House of Representatives of the United States, nor
capable of holding any civil office under the authority
of the United States; and forty years later (1855),
having failed to get that proscriptive principle into
the organic law of the Federal government, the people
of Massachusetts then declared not only that no man
born outside of the United States should hold office
in that State, but "that no man who worshiped God in
a Catholic church should hold office in the State." In
this connection I think it well worth while to insert
an extract from the speech of Hon. James B. Eustis,
of Louisiana, in the United States Senate, January

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