Note 334 — Chapter X
Reading edition
The alcaldes of Indian villages usually have a long cane with a silver head, like those formerly carried by footmen, as a badge of their office. In remote places I have seen them, with their canes in their hands, a battered tall hat upon their heads, a linen jacket and trousers, and barefooted, riding on an ox, and thought that they served to maintain the majesty of the law quite as well as if they had had stuff gowns, horsehair wigs, and had been seated on a sack of wool.