Atrocity

At a suburban station near Guadalajara, a crowd of evil-looking men swarmed into third-class carriages attached to the Mexico City Express.

As the train gathered speed, they took up positions at the ends of each car--lolled negligently and talked to the brakemen and train guards. Suddenly one of the men whipped out a revolver and fired point-blank at the conductor of the train, who miraculously escaped being hit. At this signal more revolvers cracked, knives darted at the bewildered train guards, all of whom were killed.

The assassins calmly opened the doors of the third-class compartments and fired indiscriminately upon the passengers. Men, women, children and several babies in arms were killed.

All the passengers were robbed, with the exception of such women as happened to be traveling in the Pullman car of the train. No shots were fired in the Pullman, " but all the male Pullman passengers were stripped of their last cent.

Mr. G. M. Wynkoop, U. S. business man, later declared: "Thank God we got away alive. . . . The only mercy shown was to foreigners. ... I doubt if anybody will ever know the number of dead and wounded. . . . The bandits had with them an expert engineer, who ran the train to Yurecuare. . . . There they wrecked the station, looted the town, burned and wrecked every coach on the train, and heartlessly stood by while wounded passengers in the third-class carriages were actually cremated alive. . . .

"I said to one of the bandits, 'Why do you do all this?' He replied, 'We are revolutionaries. We have risen against Calles. Watch developments!'

"My wife and I, together with most of the foreign passengers, made our way on foot to Guadalajara. . . . We are all busted, but that is better than being killed."

Late despatches added little to this tale of wanton slaughter. Only three other passengers were mentioned, all of whom escaped: Mr. Russell, a mining man from Pachura, and "the wife and child of C. H. Sharratt, Manager of the Guadalajara branch of the Bank of Montreal." President Calles at once ordered 4,000 Federal troops to pursue the bandits, or "revolutionaries," to a ranch known as " Quitupan" in the state of Jalisco, whither they had fled after escaping on the engine of the wrecked train.

The Calles troops were reported to be executing on the spot everyone whom they caught and believed to be one of the assassins. Eight men who were caught red-handed with loot from the train " confessed" --to exactly what was not stated-- and were instantly shot. The only hint at a definite explanation of the bandits' acts was that they thought General Ferreira, Military Commandant of the state of Jalisco, was on the train and wished to murder him.