Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1892 — Mexican Leisure. [ARTICLE]

Mexican Leisure.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat. We live a poetic existence in Mexico. WcnevcFgct —in a - hurry.“Manana” (to-morrow) is the rule there. The climate is enervating and the people are delightfully indolent. One universal custom that is particularly charming is the daily siesta. Men and women of high and low degree indulge in it, and even the City of Mexico, which is rapidly becoming modernized under Ameri can influence, is notexempt from it. Go in any Mexican city bet ween the hours of 2 and 4 in the afternoon and you’ll think you are in a deserted village. Everybody is asleep. Eveq the dogs cease their yelping and the goats their bleating. Banks, stores and public offices are closed, and the man who would intrude on the sanctified stillness would feel like a savage. But after 4 o’clock the aspect of everything is changed. Business is resumed with renewed vigor and activity. Banks are kept open till 7 o’clock, and factories are not closed before 8. From 9to 11 o’clock we have supper, which is the principal meal of the day. Then it is that the dark-eyed senoritas array themselves in all the gorgeousness of the tropics and tune their guitars and mandolins for the evening's love-making. The soft tinkle of their stringed instruments makes the night air all the more sensuous, and the cabelleros are frantic with delight. We don’t go to bed before midnight, and | no one ever thinks of breakfasting! before 9 o’clock, x