. A glimpse of old Mexico; being the observations and reflections of a tenderfoot editor while on a journey in the land of Montezuma . nd a resolute courage that never stoppedto calculate dangers when once his mind was made up. Fortun-ately for Mexico, such a man came to the front in the person ofPresident Porfirio Diaz. If I were asked to name the greateststatesman of all lands that the present generation has produced,I should find no difficulty in placing this distinguished gentle-mans name at the head of the list. Measured by what he has ac-complished for his country, which should be the su
. A glimpse of old Mexico; being the observations and reflections of a tenderfoot editor while on a journey in the land of Montezuma . nd a resolute courage that never stoppedto calculate dangers when once his mind was made up. Fortun-ately for Mexico, such a man came to the front in the person ofPresident Porfirio Diaz. If I were asked to name the greateststatesman of all lands that the present generation has produced,I should find no difficulty in placing this distinguished gentle-mans name at the head of the list. Measured by what he has ac-complished for his country, which should be the supreme test, heeasily leads them all. He found Mexico stricken and prostrate,hurrying to utter anarchy and barbarism, a by-word of reproachthroughtout the civilized world. He has restored it to order, madeit respected abroad, given wealth and happiness to its people, andstarted it on a career of progress, the future of which is other man is there today in public station who, in his de-clining years, can look back on a life work of such splendid re-sults ? At Sea on Board S. S. Colon, March, 1901. mm SECOND HEN Porfirio Diaz becamePresident of Mexico somethingover twenty years ago, he wasgenerally regarded as another ofthe executive figure-heads isetup to be knocked down. It wasnot long, however, before he fur-nished evidence that he differedin many respects from his pred-ecessors. His, first move wasto strengthen on the central authority by remodelingthe army. He officered it with those .devoted to himself andintroduced modern regulations that changed it from little betterthan an undisciplined mob, as apt to fight on one side as another,to a fairly efficient and reliable body of troops. Then he organ-ized the rurales, a sort of mounted police on the Texas Rangerplan, all composed of picked men, of tried courage, sure shots andhard riders, who have developed itito one of the most capable andtrustworthy constabularies to be found in the world. With thesead
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