They are what is known as a necessary evil." Greatly surprised, Elias raised his head and looked at him in astonishment.

"Do you, then, also believe in a necessary evil, sir ?" he asked in a voice that trembled slightly.

"Do you believe that in order to do good it is necessary to do evil ?" "No, I believe in it as in a violent remedy that we make use of when we wish to cure a disease.

Now then, the country is an organism suffering from a chronic malady, and in order to cure it, the government sees the necessity of employing such means, harsh and violent if you wish, but useful and necessary." "He is a bad doctor, sir, who seeks only to destroy or stifle the symptoms without an effort to examine into the origin of the malady, or, when knowing it, fears to attack it.

The Civil Guard has only this purpose: the repression of crime by means of terror and force, a purpose that it does not fulfil or accomplishes only incidentally.