The Russellville Democrat., 1878-11-28
Mexico and the Latin Race.


 Mexico and the Latin Race.
 Even her most ardent friends can not pretend that Mexico has yet freee herself from the blight ol that curse which ba so long brooded over the old Spanish possessions Ill America. A fair land. a monument of an antique civilization, which, al though cruel in it's sacerdotalism and semi barberous in our point of view, deserves better fate than that inflicted hy CorteZ aud his sol diers Ut seems at length to have awakened from the lethargy of its degradation of SO many years. For some montf we heard fewer accounts of outra9es upon the Rio Grande and a state of affairs in Chihuahua which twelve mouths ago could only be compared to the centre of Sicily under the dominion of robbers amt highwayiDen banded together in the secret society of the Matia. The recent regulations have inflicted a
 
 laws, and something similar seems to have acted upon the marauders who, so short a time ag,, 'efrorizei the whole line nf the river from ahove Fl Paso to below Brownsville. It will, perhaps, be difficult to hope that the present generation can see a period Of perfect peace and free 1 dom without Incense among the half 1 breeds who, for the last quarter of q century or more, have retarded the settlement and the development of | the resources of the beautliul valley. l A hvdria race rarely, it ever, cut itself altogether aloof from its old traditions, It's oid manners ahd cns toms, and the graft oi the superior has usually added its own, vices. without incorporating its virtues. to the inferior race with which 1t ha- been brought m contact. The in habitants oi the pruyince of St. Paul, n Brazil are notable exceptions, Their blood is mixture derived from Portuguese settlers from Lis bon and Madeira and the native In dians whom the immigrants found there upon their arrival. But this, SD far as the iutcrlpixture of lhe Latin races and the aborigines oI nearly uncivillzed lands is concerned has been the exception and not the rule. Neither in their settlements il, Africa. nor in India, can the Port ugese themselves present any paral lel instance, and the French inter marriages with the natives of Alge- ria have produced n progeny inferior to the Arabs in Arabic yirtues, both of mud and body, and almost meal culably lower than the stock and stem of the father.
 From these precedents sAe men who always fear rather tban hope who are ever more ready to prophess evil things than to dwell upon the possibilities Of improvement, are too ready to say that Mexico, unreger crate lD the past, can, alter so many years. have but little hope ot regeL ePatlon in the iuture. But to adhere te this doctrine, to admit 50 deep q stigma as a necessary incident oi the fortunes of SO many millions of thI hu,aap race, wonid be uaphilusophi, in the last degree. lt would be, il effect, simultaneous admission o the var ations of race, and T repudi ton of those laws which effect th, mutations m their history, and guid, and direct the comparative rapitltN or tardiness of their development 1t would be tantamount t, the dee laration tha. because one race ha' in the past been slower in its growtl than another, the necessary and ire sistible conclusion must he that it' wheels of progress have been check
 ed never to reyolve again. And tt prove that this would he erroneous not merely in thfory and detiuetiot
 from tho principles of wise optl mism, hut from the facts of Indnc tion which stare us in the face, 1t il only necessary to look to some of tn, late changes in theol wrold. Italy
 q Latin race, virtually ceased to h' : q merely geographical expression
 before Germany was welded togetne
 into one nation, and her progress il the immediate past has assonishe, even England and the United States Spain, another Latin nation, has after the turbulence which followe, she flight of Isabella in 1868, evi dently enteted upon new career 0 prosperity. so marked that il ma almost be called rejavenatfoh France is the latest, and in man,