American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1851, 1851-08-01
AMERICAN TELEGRAPH
mH For the American Telegraph.
4 NOTES ON NEW MEXICO-No. 16.
BY HENRY HARDY.

BY HENRY HARDY H
And now at length / must bid adieu to
Santa Fe--to Santa Fe, with all its pomp and
circumstance, its pride and pretension, it's large
promise and small performance--to Santa Fe,
with its good and its evil; its grand plaza the
| frequent scene Of gaiety and parade, Of fun and
frolic, the prancing-ground Of the well mounted
| cavalier, the sale-stand of the wood-packed
bMaos, the rendezvous Of chattering lovers, or
the field Of mortal strife but, at any rate, the
boast and glory of every native ciudadano. !
must leave Santa Fe, with all its plains and
shaggy mountains; its hot suns and cold winds !;
its purling rivulet and turbid canals; its mode
rate but motley population; it's sharp traders
shrewd Jockeys fast sales aud high profits its
fandangoes and its monte tables; its strutting
military and smart civilians; its beauties and
it's uglinesses the latter preyailng); its priests
and its people; its strife between Mexican
apathy and American onwardism; its dirty
streets, foul alleys and noisy groggeries; its
few virtues and many vices; and, not to carry
the catalogue further, in word its Grisos and
Gringos s t @
would libel Santa Fe a thoughts hairs
breadth. 1t is the capital of country which
it fairly represents. There are many brave and
better, and will no doubt lend a hand to every
hopeful improvement. But was glad to leave
it; nay, ] might say more, for | speak sober
truth when | state that though endured there
by far the severest and most dangerous illness
| of my whole life yet did congratulate myself
upon having to spend 80 much of my time in
the sick-bed, rather than to mix in the dissipa-
| tions that | could not have avoided had | kept
in health. Yes, looked upon my illness as a
God-send, and forgot not to thank the kind
Providence which had mercifully permitted or
ordered it.
The moral atmosphere of this capital Of the
| valley of the Rio Grande could not well be
worse Nor is its mental condition much more
promising. When l was there, not even a heb
domadal press cast it's ftful glare over the thick
| darkness that everywhere prevailed. A press
might have been sustained and well supported,
one should think, but what between violent
partyspirit, intellectual apathy, and the vicious
| courses into which it somehow or other hap
pens that almost all mechancs-and rather
conspicuously, printers-are apt to fall after
being short time in the country, not single
sheet was printed from one end of the territory
to the other. was more than once urged by
| inviting considerations to remain or return,
and set up paper myself; but perceiving the
great difficulty with which such an enterprise
must be environed, l always respectfully, but
with great sincerity, declined.
i There are ut all times in Santc Fe civilians
and officers of the army, well read and well
informed men both in literature and science,
whose assistance might be secured in aid of
other matter; but considerable as their talents
| might be, they are, or were, wrapped in the
napkin of their own thoughts. New Mexico is
eminently region for the profitable study and
active exertions of the geologist, the mineralo-
gist, and metallurgist; nor would the intelligent
naturalist, whether his department were zool-
ogy, botany, or ethnology, fail to find an ample
| field wherein to exhaust his labors.
The want of some stimulus to intellectual
energy and pursuits is strongly perceptble in
the case of the younger officers of the army
stationed in that remote region, for they have
much spare or, to be more precise, much waste
time on their hands, which they are but too apt
to employ in low and immoral indulgences, the
opportunities for which are most abundant in
| Santa Fe and indeed elsewhere all over the
province. 1t is but just to remark, however,
that saw the country at perhaps the lowest
ebb of its neap, at period when, from the cir
cumstances of the case the only power was the
one man po,cer, uniting in itself all authority
! civil and military, legislative and administra-
tive, and possibly to some extent, judicial also.
Under such system of government any where,
whether circumstantially justifable or not, the
press is not congenial production, and even
where it does exist cannot be expected to thrive.
Notc, the case is different. With the establish
ment of Territorial Government in which the
people have very substantial, if not complete
control over themselves and their concerns, the
press is a natural growth, and must be sustained
as much as any other indispensable requisite
branch of the public economy.
But it is not only that presses and printers
must become domiciliaries in New Mexico for
the purposes of government, politics, and news;
the moral and intellectual elevation and adj
vancement of the whole people--natives and
emigrants-can be effected in no way so surely
as by the preparation Of books written with spe-
cial reference to their peculiar wants, charac-
ter, and circumstances, and printed on the spot.
And when this is done-as done it may md
must bean entering wedge win have been
forged which shall as wholesomely as gradually
open the way to the truth and the light which
we Of the United States so much more fully and
benignantly enjoy-frst to the adjoining popu-
lations of the old Mexican States of Chihuahuu,
Coahuila, and Durango, and, through them, to
the whole people Of our sister Republic.
/ need scarcely remark that, as a means to
get communication with the minds of the people
Of New Mexico, those teachers who are sent
thitber should be first well instructed, and skill
full in the use of its yernacular tongue. Span
ish should be a branch-and prominent one
in the education of every young man designed
for the office of public teacher; obviously to
send one to that country without knowledge
Of its tongue is the same as sending man into
. field to work with palsied right arm
RETURN HOME.
Early in the afternoon Of the 14th Of Novem-
Der, drove up my four-mule ambulance to the
H. 4. Al.