Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1888 — MEXICO. [ARTICLE]

MEXICO.

I‘ennliar I*ha»ea or Life in On,r Sister Republic. Kxtructs from a letter. To give you a fair idea of what class of Americans we meet in Mexico, we can truly say sally one-naif of them are drunken, and of the worst. of morale; they get drunk, go into bad company, gamble, and do everything that is bad, disobeying the laws and customs of the country. Many of the Americans here were compelled to come this side of the Rio Grande to keep away from the penalty of their bad acts in the Statee; no wonder that the” people h ere. who see all these Americans who care neither for law of God nor man, should form a bad ( pinion of the American people. The against robbing on the highway is death. Even an attempted robbery is punished with death. Any one in any way injuring therailroad frack, or firing a pistol in a car, or throwing a stone through a car window, or in any way endangering the lifeorpirson in a car or public conveyance, is by law subject to be immediately shot; and we can assure our readers the law is not a dead lettsr, but is executed promptly. Woen an accident happens here on the railway every one has to show it was not his fault, or he must suffer in i ctordauce with the character of the accident. With such strict laws many American railroad men who are careless and drunken find great fault,” and often haveto leave the country in a harry, and then make verj false statements whep ihev get to a place of safety, I People are not bothered about recompared to what is reported. Of course, this is a country intensely Catholic, and all know that all Catholics are opposed to Protestants; but the law here says that all shall have a right to worship as they please. Still, at several times and places, mobs have attacked churches. When missionaries have carefully gone on and minded their own business, they have had very little trouble—not a tithe of what has been reported—and in time there will be no trouble, we hope, T wenty years ago there was no chance for the arranging of Protestant churches here; but now we see very little trouble. It is hard work to change people from Catholics to Protestants, and where good men are sent they have very little trouble; but, we are Borry to say, some very poor material is sent to Mexico for missionaries.

There are many petty thieves here, but their thievery is only in a small way. Grand robbery and house breaking is almost unknown. We have never heard of a case ol house breaking by* a Hex;cm since we have been in Mexico, and there have only been three cases of stage robbing that we have known of, and only two cases of train robbing. Stealing by servants bears no comparison with what has been our experience in the States. The train robbing in both cases was mans gad and guided by men born and reared in the United States. The Bafety of people here on the road and in crowds of people is ten times greater than it is. in the States. The people of Mexico, as a class, are poor. At a fair estimate, we think that there is not more than one man in fifty who is in fair living circumstances. The population inabont 9,000,000, of these, about 5 000.000 are under the age of twenty, and of the adults about threefourths are women; or, in other word*, there are about three adult women-to each man. We are often called on to say why this is. Well, a few years ago this was a country of revolutions, and

the men were killed off; but with pesce, under such rulers as the present President Diaz ior another twenty years, this difference in the sexes will be greatly changed. The land of the country is in the hands "of the few, and the poor or peon class work for them at from 121 to 50 cents a da;; and this can never be changed. Way? Well, these poor people are wholly Indians and will not work if they have money. Give one of them SIOO, and he wiil spend $5 for food, $lO for a fine hat or shawl, and the other SBS will be played away at monle or other modes of gamoling. In fact, this one habit is a ruling one among all classes and ages. We know a mine owner whose mine paid him for several years $500,000 each year. He spent about SIO,OOO in his house and on his family and friends, and gambled away all the balance.

The people, almost without exception, are extremely polite; kind and lovipg to their family and friends. Children obey their parents and care for them when old. The family tieß here seem to be more, strong than we have ever seen anywhere else. The old grandmother or g -andfather takes (he seat of honor at table, and is never left in poverty or the poor honse when the son has money.

Raising Money in China. The Argonaut. « Raising money for public works in China is no joke to Celestial officials. The late terrific floods in the empire having been caused by a breach in the Yellow rivtr, 20,000,000 teals (about $32,500,000) most be spent on repairing the damage, so, to provide the necessary lands, all provincial officials’ salaries will be stopped fer a year.