MEXICAN HOMES AND CUSTOMS.
By Henry Ware Allen
BURGLARY and that twin dread to the housekeeper, fires, are almost unknown in Mexico. The houses, being constructed almost entirely of stone and plaster, are in no danger of conflagration, and as each house has all lower windows barred with iron, with but one door, and that a huge one of oak, bolted and braced at night as if to withstand a battery, and guarded by a potero who sleeps by it, one feels when going to rest as if he were quite safe from all danger. The houses face abruptly on the sidewalk—the Mexican's house being his castle—but within one always finds a square open patio, often a garden adorned with statuary and fountains. Mexican housekeeping is peculiar. Servants are generally faithful and honest, and work for five to ten dollars per month. Rations, nine to eighteen cents a day, are always extra. A mat on the floor is generally accepted as a good enough couch, but cot beds are supplied in the better houses. Everything is done on a cash basis—the cook going to market for the day's supplies and rendering her account at night. Little or nothing is kept on hand, a few cents' worth of this, that, and the other being purchased every day. Instead of stoves little grates are fixed in masonry of brick, over which, on charcoal fires kept bright by fanning, everything is cooked. Kitchen utensils are almost entirely of earthenware and cost but a trifle. The markets are in the morning great hives of chattering, expostulating, bargaining humanity—more business being accomplished with twenty-five cents than anywhere else in the world. There is no Chinese question in Mexico—John Chinaman would starve if he tried to compete with the peon. This is the land of contracts—none sharper than in the prices of commodities. Goods that have passed the custom house are often double or treble a normal price, while native products are sold for a pittance. The people of Mexico are much misunderstood in the United States. Americans are apt to think of their Southern neighbors as "greasers," judging the nation by that type which is too numerous at the border on either side of the Rio Grande. But as Cortez found here a civilization higher in many respects than that of Spain, so it happens now that visitors from the North find a great deal in Mexico that is superior. An urchin at the public school who has never worn a shoe, and whose ancestors never saw one, will always say, "With your permission," when passing in front of his teacher, and when asked his name will add, in replying, "Entirely at your service." That politeness which comes to an American child, if at all, only after much training, seems to be second nature to a Mexican. When a servant is discharged, instead of raising her voice in wrath, she will say good-by quietly, at the same time asking to be forgiven for all her faults. Kindest of parents, extremely courteous and polite, passionately fond of music and flowers, skillful in many branches of art, these people, the peons of Mexico, are away ahead of their environment. Rich and poor are equally courteous to each other; the best of feeling seems to exist between them. A cochero will pull up his horses to allow "el Señor," who lifts his hat in acknowledgment, to pass. Indeed that dream in Puck, where two Broadway draymen, just after a collision, are pictured as begging each other's pardon, each claiming all blame in the politest language, is almost a realization in Mexico. The spirit of democracy, the absence of snobbishness, is noticeable everywhere. Silks12and rags mingle freely in all public places and worship together in the churches. That Mexico City is the quietest and most orderly on the American continent is due more to the disposition of the people than to the exceptionally good police service. Sometimes undue importance seems to be given to customs of etiquette. Two Mexican gentlemen will bow and gesticulate before an open door, each urging the other's precedence, when Americans would save the time thus consumed. When walking together, each must take the inside; and the breaking up of a party is accompanied by endless handshakings and farewells. Even on leaving street cars, if the ride has been one of any duration, a gentleman must raise his hat to those left behind, and purchasers at the stores commence and end their dealings by shaking hands with the salesman. Sombreros are always lifted when passing church doors, and at noon, when the cathedral bells ring, every good Mexican within hearing uncovers. The peon population of Mexico live in adobe houses or shanties of cornstalks, own but two or three garments each, sleep on straw mats, and exist on next to no wages. As an official of the treasury department recently stated it, "The population of Mexico is only half fed, a quarter clad, and an eighth illuminated" (petroleum retails for seventy-five cents per gallon). Yet after all there is, without doubt, more real poverty, more distress and desperate hardship, in a single New York tenement house ward than in the whole republic of Mexico—for here the climate is gentle, nature is prodigal, the necessities of life are easily obtained, and the horrors of many-storied tenement houses are unknown. On the one hand, is a race of sunny-natured people, whose condition is steadily improving; on the other hand, a race whose social adjustment is so out of order that an increasing proportion of the population is being crushed under the wheel of unavoidable poverty. The peon is nothing if not contented. He could no more be induced to join a band of "calamity howlers" than could the most villainous "plutocrat" of Wall Street. This characteristic is due partly to the fatalism which prevails, and is further a result of centuries of servitude. Fatalism is said to be a factor in the army. The Mexican soldier goes into battle, believing that if death comes, it was foreordained, and so he does not try to evade the danger.—Review of Reviews.