Morris tribune., 1883-05-02
TIE CETY OF MEXICO.

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Mexico is q serious and by no M cans
a gay city. There are no crowds upon
the sidewalks, no eating of ices in pub
lie, no cafes chQ,ataats, nothing Pari-
sian. By or 10 o'clock the good peo-
pie appear to have retired already, to be
up betimes in the morning for the work
of the day. Auxiliary band plays three
evenings in the week, but even this,
except on Sundays, is SO sparsely at
tended that the men seem to be discourse
ing their music for their own amuse-
ment. Policemen are found stationed
at short intervals in the quiet streets.
with their lanterns set in the middle OF
the roadway. They are obliged by the
regulations to signal their whereabouts
every quarter OF an hour, and the sound
of their Whistles, which have a shrill,
doleful note, like November wind, may
be heard repeated from one to the other
al the night through.
As the place does not expect tourists,
there are almost none of the appurten-
ances for their enlightenment to be met
with elsexAssa. While this may have
its annoyaassr. II the demands OF an
ardent curiosity remain too long unan-
swered, the freedom from respesxsbility
to o Baedeker or Murray has advant-
ages of its own. The visitor with an
eye for the picturesque dips into deli
cious feast of novelties, makes discover
les on every hand, and may have the
pleasure of testing the value of his own
unaided conclusions. BY daylight, with
its bright colors upon it, and its normal
stir of life, the famous remote capital is
a very different place. BY little and
little the misapprehensions OF the night
are shaken off. From the first moment
of disappointment we like it always
more instead of less.
Figures go by whose blankets one
burns to take from themIforporticres. The
men of the poorer sort wear or carry
universally the serape-a blanket with a
slit in the center for the insertion of the
head. Apart from its artistic patterns,
it is useful garment in many emergen-
cies. It is not the most improbable
thing in the world that, in the course of
the Mexican revival, we may yet see it
introduced in the States, and running
the course of popularity of the ulster.
The corresponding national garment OF
women is the rebozo, a shawl or scarf,
generally of blue cotton, which, crossed
over the head and lower part of the face,
gives a Moorish appearance.
Mexico is extraordinarily fat, and its
streets laid as regularly at right angles
as in our own most symmetrical town.
At the ends of all OF them, in what
soever direction, the view is closed by
mountains. Its fatness, together with
its position in reference to the adjoining
series of lakes, is one of the circum-
stances which have occasioned the
greatest solicitude in the past, and still
call for almost as much. Bad odors
beset the nostrils, and stagnant cutters,
neglected heaps of garbage, the sight of
the wayfarer about the interesting
streets. The situation in this particular
is a crying shame. The citizens of
Mexico should stop. as if an enemy were
at their gates, and devote themselves to
its remedy. Not another railroad should
be built, not another dollar voted to
any public purpose, till it is attended
to.-W. II. Bishop, an Rarper's Maga-