Note XX-26 — Chapter XX · DEMOCRACY RESTORED IN GUATEMALA. 1865-1873.

A contemporary gives the following lists of bequests left by the conservative rule of thirty years. A large number of jesuits, well fed on the sweat of the people, and their acolytes and choristers; another large quantity of Capuchin friars who preyed on the inhabitants of Antigua, Guat.; about 200 friars and lay brothers in the capital, most of them lazy and stupid; nearly 200 useless nuns, of whom some 40 were in a state of insanity or idiocy, and in condition to be canonized; one archbishop, 2 bishops, 12 or 15 vicars and canons, and a high steward of church property, etc; a foreign debt of five million dollars; a nearly complete absence of public education, necessitating the establishment of at least 500 schools and colleges adequately supplied; few, if any, roads or bridges; no steam vessels; no adequate postal service; no telegraphs; no public lands, for immense tracts of unproductive lands were held by the church and by a few aristocrats. Juan Álvarez, Dos Palabras, 12-13. Prior to the revolution of 1871, which regenerated the country, the capital wore a monkish and funereal look. After the triumph of this movement, abuses were eradicated, anachronisms disappeared, and modern ideas began to prevail. Batres, A Sketch of Guat., 16-17.