MONTEZUMA PENSIONS

Evening Star, Issue 21820, 8 September 1934, Page 4

MONTEZUMA PENSIONS

STOPPED AFTER FOUR HUNDRED YEARS The Supreme Court oh Mexico has .decided that no. more pensions bhallWbe paid' to descendants of Montezuma. ; Montezuma the Second, or Montezuma _ as he is .known to Englishspeaking people, was one 1 of the last emperors of the ,old Aztec nation, exterminated'by Cortes, the great Spanish adventurer and warrior, when ha conquered the Aztec Empire. Owing to his great superstition and a belief in an Aztec prophecy which declared that a white man out of tho East would conquer Mexico, Montezuma felt it was hopeless to fight against Hernando Cortes and the gods. Because of this many of the Azteo princes and citizens considered _ him a coward. Cortes captured him _by trickery, but one of his own .subjects wounded the king with a stone flung from a sjing, and Montezuma died from the wound. Cortes arranged for pensions to he paid to Montezuma’s children and their, descendants, and the pensions were to be perpetual. The descendants, as time . went on, became " numerous, and more and more pensions had to bo paid by the Spanish Government, and later by the Mexican Government when Mexico became independent. Not long ago, 400 years after tho death of Montezuma, the question of these burdensome' pensions was raised in Mexico’s Congress, Many of the members, seeking to reduce Budget costs,, argued that as Montezuma had' been a coward bis descendants did not deserve pensions, and that they should be stopped, Montezuma’s descendants, scores in number, went to law to secure the continuance of their . pensions, but they have lost their case. Mexico lias decided that she has kept the promise uiade by Cortes quite long enough.