The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1881-05-19
The CITY or Mexico.

The City OF Mexico.
In spite of its HAT surface and its
rectilinear streets, the City of Mexico is |
very picturesque and attractive; indeed
l do not know of q city which presents
a more brilliant aspect of life and color. |
The architecture is massive and clumsy,
and when studied in detail furnishes |
little to crafty the taste or provoke the |
curiosity, but when taken as a whole 1t
furnishes picture which pleases by its
variety and strangeness. The air here
Is SO clear and pure that the stars shine
with an unnatural brilliancy, and this
purity of the atmosphere heightens the
effect of the vivid co.ors and varied out
lines of the buildings. The sky line is
broken by shrines and turrets and pin.
nacles, elaborately carved and deco
rated, which rise above the parapets OF
the houses, and the wall line is diversi-
fed by q succession of holdings and
projections, and by the inevitable bal
cony before tho window and the avn
ing of linen or canvas which tells of
Southern climate. Very few of the
buildings impress us, because stucco is
almost universal, and the stone looks
very much like stucco, being uneven in
surface, and not taking smooth pol
ish. But Mexican houses are built, not
for the street on which they turn their
backs, but for the open courts on which
all the rooms open, which are the CEN
ters of Mexican household life and
which are embellishcd and decorated
with new forms of comfort and luxury.
AS we pass by q porte cochere, which
which may have on one side a meat
- ~, hA cf.Nr
we look into q court yard with two or
thrae stories of elaborate colOnnade
around it, with rare plants and flowers
blooming in vases of porcelain, and
broad fights of stone steps leading up
to the open galleries, and we have
higher respect for the domestic life of
the Mexicans. ~
The streets uniformly present busy
and active scene, partly on account of
the natural tendency to outdoor life In
q warm climate. partly because of the
waste of energy resulting from their
rude appliances of labor. All trans
portation is done by hand or on pack
mules. The dray, the cart, the furni-
ture wagon, the express, the delivery
wagon, are unknown here-their serv-
ices being wastefully replaced by burros
and Aztecs. The burro is quite an
institution here, and will be until the
interior gets better roads. A wagon
road is the exception in Mexico, and
the country has no third choice between
the railroad and the mule track, and it
is astonishing how many things are car
ried in paniers and bags and skins
across the spinal column of the dimin-
utivc but hardy burro. Lime and sand
and stone, charcoal and wood and hay,
fruit and vegetables and milk, miner
ais, chemicals, in a word, all the natural
products of the country are dexterously
adjusted on the packs, and as it takes
about twelve of the little beasts to get
away with as much as a stout horse
could draw in q wagon. there is great
appearance of activity, quite out OF
proportion to the result accomplished.
The city slop-cart is simply pair of
boxes slung across q pack-saddle, and
| the Mexican butcher-boy has a small
gallows of iron fixed on his donkey s
| back, from which he hangs the car
casses and quarters of the very dimin-
utive mutton, the exiguous veal and the
discouraged beef of the country. The
| donkeys, however, have the easy end
| of the contract; they only carry the
| light loads, and as soon as anything
gets too heavy for q donkey it falls to
the weary back of the porter and is
carried by one-man power.
| Two other circumstances which lend
life to the streets are the prevalence of
street hawkers and the fashion of
boarding away from home. Cafes,
restaurants, tendas, fondas, pulquerias,
dulcerias and pastelerias abound, and
the Mexicans do o great deal of out
| door eating. In the poorest quarters
open-air frying-pans hiss and sizzle
with unsavory messes of sausage. gar
lie, fish, tortillas and other indelicacies
| of the perennial season. Ices are sold
in the plaza and on the streets, cheap
and not bad, and it is sight for s
sketch in Punch to see a habby old
Indian beldame who has lived on this
terraqueous globe seventy-nine years
without ever washing her face or comb
ing her hair, squatting on the curbstone
and eating from small glass three.
cent water ice and smoking a cigarette
My eyes have seen this sight only toe
often.
Then the Mexicans have sweet
tooth, and between the constant thirs
of this dessiccated climate and the con
slant longing for sugar-plums the trade
in sweets Is roaring one. Fruit
stands abound with fruit venders circu
lating between; then all the fruits o.
the country are candied-and very flint
candies they make; then they are made
into sweet paste and into an infinite
variety of confections alluring to the
taste but provocative of thirst, and a!
wine is eXorbitantly high, the Mexican
drinks sugarwater, sherbets, lemon
ade, water-ices, seltzer and various pinl
and yellow compounds suggestive of the
revels of the Marchioness in the kitcher
of Mr.. Sampson Brass.
In addition to outdoor eating, street
life is enlivened by outdoor trades
The taxes on shopkeeping, like all otbel
taxes here, are very arbitrary, a dealer
who carries 500, 900 of stock and sells
81, 100000 worth year. paying very
little more than the smallest shOpkeep
er. These taxes are made much higher
than for street venders, and the conse
quence is that hundreds of industries
that would 60 into small shops under Al
equitable rate of taxation are driver
into the streets. All these hawker.
and peddlers, carrying their stock il
trade on their heads and crying ou
their wares or displaying them on the
sidewalks and in the plazas. help to fill
the moving panorama, which constant
ly changes, yet always remains the
same. Moreover the climate Is ener
waiting and persuades the better classe.
to take to carriages: the Mexican i!
also much given to riding up and dowr
on horseback; the army is Kept psrad
ing, and drilling and relieving guart
in an impressive manner; the gen
darmes, in dark blue uniforms ane
white havelocks, are at every corner
swarms of Indian laborerS, in Eappins
white canvas suits and flat-crowned
| broad -hrimmed hats, fit noiselesslY b.