I’m sure you’re getting tired of this from me by now. Four posts this year about smuggling bologna into the United States from Mexico.
Well, it seems other edible items have been on the list of things you shouldn’t smuggle into New Mexico.
Yep, chile.
When looking for articles about German submarines coming up the Rio Grande to blast El Paso (more on this important topic in a later post), I stumbled upon an article in a 1902 edition of the El Paso Herald reporting the arrest of a man for smuggling chile into the United States from Mexico.
There were few details about the incident, except to say he was trying to bring in 390 pounds of the stuff across the border from Mexico. That would have been pretty hard to “smuggle” in those days, I think.
So smuggling Mexican bologna into the United States, which I have been reporting in multiple posts, maybe doesn’t seem like such a big deal. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said in a recent newspaper article that smuggling bologna into the United States “wasn’t funny” and could harm American agriculture. My personal observation is that bringing chile in from Mexico (which happens all the time these days) probably poses a greater agricultural risk.
But I’m moving beyond that to a story in the same 1902 newspaper that appeared right above the tale of the smuggled chile.
The headline for that story was:
“Young Man Marries Girl He Wronged”
The story in the El Paso Herald said a man was arrested and jailed on a charge of “seduction” of a young woman. However, the man who had “wronged” the young woman agreed that if he could get out of jail, he would marry her, if she would have him. She agreed and the judge who jailed the man promptly performed the marriage ceremony after he was released.
According to the Herald article, the groom was so pleased about his fortuitous outcome that he purchased a wedding cake, tobacco and “other things” to share with his former cellmates at the jail.
There was no mention whether the bride attended the jailhouse celebration.
aero-cordero.com 