red--the famous days of 1849--and
Mexico did not know what she was losing. Perhaps in the interests of
the development of the fine State of California and its progressive
people, circumstances were for the best as they were. Santa-Anna
disappears from the scene in 1855. After the war he had assumed
semi-regal titles and pretensions, and had brought about or permitted a
further cession in the unpopular treaty with the United States. Further
revolutions and _pronunciamientos_ followed, and civil war divided the
country.

The figure of Juarez, famous in his country's history, was appearing,
and this remarkable man became President in January, 1858. In the
previous year a new Constitution had been adopted, and is that which
has remained in force to the present day. It was duly subjected to a
futile _pronunciamiento_! Further legal enactments were made by the
Liberals against the clergy, as well as the anti-mortmain statute,
framed by Lerdo with the object of releasing the great properties held
by civil and religious corporations; and it was mainly aimed at the
power and wealth of the Church--a foretaste of the Reform Laws.

Benito Juarez was a Mexican in whom no strain of Spanish blood existed,
his parents having been pure-blooded Indians of the Zapotecas of
Oaxaca. Shepherd, student of divinity, Governor of Oaxaca, Minister of
Justice, and President by turns, the name and fame of this remarkable
example of aboriginal intelligence stands strongly out in the history
of his country. The Conservative party were not slow in launching
_pronunciamientos_, and disaster befel the Liberal Government of
Juarez, who was compelled to flee for the time being. The whole of the
Republic again became the scene of desolating civil warfare, due to the
bitter struggles of the Liberal and Conservative parties. Generals,
calling themselves Presidents, set up Governments in various parts of
the country, and _pronunciamientos_ and bloodshed were the order of the
day. But chief among the sanguinary scenes of this appalling drama,
carried out with the religion of Christ as its mainspring, was the
Tacubaya massacre. This place, a beautiful residential suburb of the
City of Mexico, became the field of a strenuous engagement, the
victorious forces of the Conservatives, under General Marquez,
signalling their triumph by an abominable massacre, in which the
medical attendants, including an English physician, all of whom had
voluntarily given their ser