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It has a wooden fort, which mounts some artillery, and a monastery of the Order of St. Augustine; also a parish church, with its own vicar and secular priest. This church belongs to the diocese of the Sebu bishopric. It has a cabildo, consisting of alcaldes, regidors, and other officials. There is one alcalde-mayor and military leader in those provinces.
At the same time he observed that the man who had told them about the matter was wrong in saying that the two who brayed were regidors, for according to the lines of the standard they were alcaldes.
The de facto government was accepted as a necessity, and under its direction "alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were elected. But the mining-camps, which were in a part of the country that had not been settled by the Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew nothing of their system or laws, were left to work out their own salvation.
The chief alcaldes in Monterey and Santa Barbara were both Yankees by birth. The men in Monterey appeared to me to be always on horseback. Horses are as abundant here as dogs and chickens were in Juan Fernandez.
In addition to him, each town has a commandant who is its chief officer, and has charge of the fort, and of all transactions with foreigners and foreign vessels; while two or three alcaldes and corregidores, elected by the inhabitants, are the civil officers. Courts strictly of law, with a system of jurisprudence, they have not.
Look at the mere mockery of all law and justice which has always prevailed in place of an able and learned judiciary. Alcaldes, most of them unlearned in any system of jurisprudence, and unconversant with legal proceedings of any description, have been elected to administer a code, scattered through hundreds of volumes and written in languages of which they did not understand one word.
As Hittell points out, even well-read lawyers who happened to be made alcaldes soon came to pay little attention to technicalities and to seek the merit of cases without regard to rules or forms. All the administration of the law was in the hands of these alcaldes.
The alcaldes are appointed by the president of the Republic. In general the system works smoothly. The alcaldes are often ignorant men, but even in the United States the country magistrates are not always founts of wisdom.
This third I have assembled here in Toledo for the love of the Cid, that he may demand justice against the Infantes of Carrion for the wrongs which we all know. The Counts Don Anrrich and Don Remoud shall be Alcaldes in this cause; and these other Counts who are not on either side, give ye all good heed, for ye are to take cognizance that the right may be decreed.
I'll bet, if they are going to Salamanca to study, they'll come to be alcaldes of the Court in a trice; for it's a mere joke only to read and read, and have interest and good luck; and before a man knows where he is he finds himself with a staff in his hand or a mitre on his head."
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