and asserted that usury and immorality was almost universal among the
churchmen of all grades. The peasants are forced to give a tenth of all
they produce, be it only a patch of corn, to the church, which holds its
stores until prices are high, while the poverty-stricken peon must sell
for what he can get. Those married by the church are forbidden to
contract the civil ceremony, though the former is unlawful and lack of
the latter makes their children legally illegitimate. The local form of
worship includes many of the barbaric superstitions of the Indians
grafted on the stems of Catholicism, and weird pagan dances before the
altar are a part of many a _fiesta_. The town has already churches
sufficient to house easily all the population, yet an immense new
cathedral is building. The purpose of its erection, according to the
bishop, is "for the greater glorification of God."

I spent two days with the American superintendent of "Platanal," the
electric plant run by water power a few miles out of town through fields
of head-high maize. The night before my arrival bandits had raided the
establishment and one of them had been killed. The president of Zamora
had profusely thanked the "gringo" in charge when he presented himself
in town with the body. On pay-day the manager went and came from the
bank with two immense revolvers and a loaded rifle.

The current supplied by the rapids of "Platanal" is carried on
high-tension wires to several cities far distant, including Guanajuato,
a hundred miles away. Let the dynamo here break down and the cage of
"Pingueico" mine hangs suspended in its shaft and Stygian darkness falls
in the labyrinth below. In the rainy season lightning causes much
trouble, and immense flocks of birds migrating south or north, according
to the period of year, keep the repair gangs busy by flying against the
wires and causing short circuits through their dead bodies. Woodpeckers