# Pictures of life in Mexico/Volume 1/Chapter 18

Contents
CHAPTER XVIII.
AN AYUNTAMIENTO, OR TOWN COUNCIL.
Being interested to see how the municipal government of Mexico was carried on, I one day attended a town-council, or ayuntamiento. In this country these officials superintend, in a very dozing; fashion, the government institutions for the education of children of both sexes in connection with their native town; giving the necessary orders respecting books and materials, auditing the accounts, and transacting any similar business belonging to the town besides.
The meeting: of councillors which I witnessed, however, had been convened for no definite purpose—there being nothing whatever for them to do. There was a prodigious din ​of words that meant nothing, and of arguments never intended to lead to anything. Each member of the assembly appeared to think his own particular voice the only one worthy of being heard on the occasion, and to be bent on vindicating his own importance at the expense of everybody and everything beside; and the subject of adjourning to partake of refreshments, seemed to be the sum and substance of their conversation, at intervals. The council met in an old, and almost unfurnished apartment, in what was formerly a splendid palace in the town square; and, as nearly as I can remember, there were about twelve members present.
The occupant of the principal seat—who seemed to be regarded as chairman—was a dark and rather puffy man, with curly moustaches, an angular beard, and black teeth; dressed in a thick, ornamented serapé, embroidered shirt, velvet pantaloons, and thin shoes. His grand forte, by which he appeared to exercise a great amount of control over his comrades, lay in—hesitation. He was not a solemn man, nor particularly violent, nor yet silent; and he listened with some show of deference to all around him—but he hesitated. Nothing could ​convince him: nothing could determine him, His hesitating accents fell like cold water on the arguments of the rest. The louder and the more flaming grew the torrent of words, the more he doubted, and shook his head, and—hesitated. And it seemed to me that the more this man hesitated, the greater was the degree of importance he assumed in the eyes of his fellow councillors.
Immediately beside him sat another notable personage, who continued almost incessantly to droop his head and gaze upon the floor, then uplift it again, once more to cast it down: he appeared to labour under a most oppressive sense of his own importance, of the importance of town-councils in general, and of the importance of that town-council and meeting, in particular. This man possessed no other talent but the assumption of solemnity; but on this capital, his wisdom passed current everywhere. Though his appearance was anything but inviting—his features being harsh and irregular, his skin uncleanly and pimpled, his clothes indifferent and ill put on, and his voice grating and disagreeable—yet this faculty of solemnity atoned for all: and when he spoke, which he often did in a most ​impressive manner, his words were treasured up by his comrades, as of sublime and weighty import.
The next official was a perfect specimen of a Mexican dandy, who must surely have made his way into that assembly on the mere strength of his laced jaceti and highly coloured costume. His hat, which lay on a table beside him, was of the finest material, with not quite so broad a brim as ordinary, but more turned up at the sides, and almost covered with fringes and rolls of red and blue ribands, with the addition of a jewelled buckle on its right side. His jacket, which was larger than usual, was of a brilliant brown-pink colour, thickly studded with silver buttons, and slashed and open to display as much as possible of his elaborately-figured shirt: his under garments were all of the most costly kind, and of the finest finish. His pantaloons, of a rich blue colour, were slashed at the sides, and studded with another collection of shining white buttons; the heels of his riding-boots were adorned with immensely large spurs; and he wore rings in his ears and on his fingers. His face was vacant and mean-looking. This gentleman had not much to say—such people seldom have ​—but what he did deliver was uttered with a most disgusting admixture of assumption and imbecility.
A little, fiery, dark creature near him, however—who perpetually twitched his limbs and person about, like the figure of a monkey hung on wires—supplied a fund of eloquence amply sufficient for them both. He would insist on putting in his opinion with the foremost; it was of a very hot and spicy character usually, and he enunciated it as if it burned his tongue in utterance. He seemed, indeed, to hurl his speeches in the faces of the rest. He would be heard, happen what might; and he brought every limb and muscle of his body to the assistance of his words—seeming to speak even out of his elbows. His whole figure and appearance were of an irritable and angular cast; his face parched, bilious, and attenuated; his features like a hawk's; and his eye to the full as restless as his limbs.
Lounging against the wall at no great distance, was an individual perhaps the least inviting in appearance of any in the assembly. His mouth and chin were very large, and projected like those of a beast; his face was strongly marked and broad, especially at the ​through his teeth, his eyebrows were large and bushy, and his thick and grizzled hair hung in a tangled mass far over his face. In short, he was a very passable impersonation of a human bear; for his manners were coarse and heavy, his speeches and exclamations grovelling and guttural, and he kept aloof from the rest, dogged, uncomplying, and wonderfully ill-conditioned.
In his two opposite neighbours, also, the animal propensities appeared greatly to preponderate. The eyes of the first were sunk in stupid vacancy, his features relaxed in inane dejection, his mouth moist and slightly open, and his person jaded and neglected: his morning's draught of aguardiente had been too strong for him; and he was all but highly intoxicated. The vacant look of his comrade might have been traced to habitual over-eating and over-smoking; and he talked and dozed upon his seat by turns. He had the most glowing complexion, and was perhaps the stoutest beneath the sash of any person present; and possessed decidedly the reddest and fullest ears and neck, in addition. He was ​rather comely and well attired, however, and by far the most peaceable and orderly member of the fraternity.
Close beside these sat a dirty, frowsy man, with blanket old and soiled, hat crushed and adust, leathern pantaloons faded, boots thick and unused to friction, and linen almost as sombre as his complexion. Yet he was a genuine town-councillor, and his opinion was received with as much consideration as another's;—he was a rich man, and well known to be such, though considering it to be no part of his duty to his neighbour, to keep himself outwardly clean and respectable.
The end of the table was graced by a tall, gaunt, and scowling individual, who evidently lived and breathed in an atmosphere of injury; his life had been a martyrdom to the injustice of other people! He did not endure the oppression of mankind without raising his voice in self-defence, however; but exclaimed against human nature generally, and the dealings of the government especially, with the utmost energy and vehemence. That man must have helped to originate a score of pronunciamientos and rebellions in a few years; and his spirit was unsated yet. Still his ​watchword was change—political and universal change. He knew his greatness; he proclaimed his own merits; and evidently felt himself to be the man for the times!