Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

UNOFFICIAL LETTERS OF

that a hostess needs. These are spread on the floor
in the hall or drawing room, and the guests are perfectly comfortable.
September 4, 1901.
LAST night we went to a teachers' banquet.
There was a large number present, and they
had a good time, I think. There was one amusing
event. An invited guest, one of the judges from
the interior, made a speech in which he spoke of the
failure of justice through the unreliability of witnesses, and of the oppression of the poor natives by
the presidentes, the heads of villages. He suggested
that it might be a good plan to change the name
presidente, which had become associated with oppression, and substitute some other, which would
cause the people to inquire into the powers of the
new office. In this way he thought they would discover that presidentes could no longer make them
perform forced labor or pay unjust taxes. Of
course, this was not actually given as a suggestion to
the Commission, and the judge apologized for mentioning it, but it aroused the ire of the toastmaster,
a member of the Commission, who arose and in his
most metallic tones said he wished he might believe
that the simple remedy offered by the judge would
make honest men of the corrupt class known as
presidentes. Then he gave at great length a history
of the office of presidente, showing it to be a name
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