VILLA SULKING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15639, 19 June 1914, Page 7

VILLA SULKING.

QUARREL WITH HIS CHIEF.

COMMAND TAKEN AWAY.

THE ANGRY DICTATOR.

PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

By Tolograph.-Pross Association.— Copyright

(Received Juno 18, 10.20 ».w.\ » Washington, June 18, Villa, exasperated at the appointment of another general to invade Zacatecas, one of the central states of Mexico, refused to assist this general whon defeated. I Oarranza thereupon suspended I Villa from his command in the Constitutionalist Army. According to another message, tho rebels have made up their differences.

'• Huerta in a Rage, n . ~ British refugees who have arrived ,t at Vera Cruz from Mexico City reg port that Sir Lionel Garden (British Minister) recently advised President Huerta to resign, and leave Mexico. Huerta, in a rage, at once e ' threatened to arrest Sir Lionel if 8 ho repeated the suggestion. [j ■ The failure of the peace confer--0 enco is freoly predicted. The' delegates conferred at j. Buffalo yesterday with tho Constii tutionalibt representative. They * [refuse to divulge the result of the "\ conference. "I

Charge Against America. Tho Huertan delegates have issued a , statement charging the United States with insisting on fcho choice of a Constitutionalist as the next

I Mexican president instead of a neutral candidate. Thoy hold that this is tantamount to aiding and abetting fraud and violence in the presi- ; dential elections. ! The Huertan gunboat Guerero yesterday captured tho Constitutionalist gunboat Tampico near Mazatlan. The captain and the chief engineer of the Tampico committed suicide after the encounter, I —

THE MEXICAN TIGER.

OPINIONS OF FOREIGNERS.

Ii is true that hard names break no bones, but that does not prevent Americans using strong expressions about Villa. Profossor A. Bushnell Hart, of Harvard Uni-

1 versity, writes in the New York Times that General Villa is "a man who combines the lofty qualities of a professed bandit and train robber, a nafebreakoir, I and a captor of a nunnery. A man who habitually, deliberately, and in cold blood, kills fellow Mexicans who have opposed him, musket in hand like men, and who have surrendered. There is no use in mincing words. In international law, in ordinary morals, in the sight of Almighty God, that shocking business is nothing else .but plain, despicable murder. Murder without any military advantage; murder for the sake of killing! One of his latest I achievements has been to order the homicide of 200 men who had thrown down 1 their arms, on the plea that unless he shot thorn they would form up again, automatically arm themselves, and attack him in the rear. Villa's plea is that of the bulldog, that ho must eat the rabbit because otherwise that animal will bite his tail off. Ho has as much capacity for civilised government as a bull in a ring." The French papers consider Villa not quite a villain. According to the Temps, " He can organise victory, create an army out a ragged horde and stand gloriously at bay." Tho Matin also finds much that , is worthy of admiration, and tho Figaro . has an admirable study of the man and his life. " There is a genuine tiger in this i man, says the writer, a something feline 1 and, odd as it must appear, even feminine. ! The Indian mothers of Mexico have handed their savagery down to their sons, their suppleDus going with it and their cat-like furies and their indirections. Porfirio Diaz had an Aztec mother, like Huorta, and those men can be cool, calculating. Villa is on the mother's side pure native Indian. Hence his hopeless illiteracy, his moments of blind rage, his incapacity to act rationally instead of instinctively. He has the blood-lust of the tiger when j brought to bay, and the vigour of that i animal in aggression. There is a sugges- ' tion of the tiger in him as he eats, holding a bone with two fingers and crunching iit ferociously. He is absolutely incompreI hensible to a European mind, but to his ' followers ho is an idol. Tho peasantry feel that he is one of them, understands them, has suffered their wrongs. He is alien to the well-bred Spanish stock which has ruled the land in the capital for so ; many years. Villa creates no army in a German "pipe-clay sense" with its disciplines and drills. He heads mobs, every member of which obeys him implicitly. In this, his 36th year, Villa's hair and stubby moustache show a trace of grey. The dark eyes, like the wide nostrils, suggest a hot temper. He is excitable, good-natured, slovenly, and disposed to moods of piety and drunkenness. The strong jaw, even, yellow teeth, heavy ear and swarthy complexion, proclaim a genuine mestizos type. He is quite unteachable in the pedagogical sense, and knows only his half-bred Mexican-Spanish, with a few words of English picked up in public bars. His figure is clean-cut, and his voice raucous. He is a 'patriot, and as such is reverenced by his followers.