Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1883-08-15
WHOLE NO. 2l32.
SANTA FE.
Aspects OF this Old New Mexican Town
Its Adobe Houses.

cloudless sky, the peaceful streets,
running off like alleys stretched apart
little, and the sheltering rim Of
mountains, whose sides the sun Is
warming with purple and red, inspire
a feeling of relief and comfort. One
need not hurry to mount bus to
avoid contact with the groups of black
hooded native women and low-browed
men who gather at the incoming train,
for they huddle like timid sheep, but it
is pleasanter to look at them from
slight elevation, where you wonder if
their faces might not be set in an adobe
wall without any one detecting the
counterfeit. A roomy American
frame hotel is one of the welcome inno-
vatiOns in the old town. Just now it
does thriving business, as it needs to
do to offset two years of steady drain
age of the purse of its proprietor, who
put small fortune in it with the idea
that people would flock to enjoy Santa
Fe's unsurpassed climate if they could
be sure of enjoying it comfortably.
The scheme went agley, and the white
haired landlord waited vainly for
months for enough guests to keep up
expenses.
From the spacious balconies one
may overlook the town and region as
far as the mountains. Long lines of
mud walls define the streets, and
window or doorway cut here and there
shows where the wall is partitioned
off inside into a dwelling. Near the
hotel are isolated houses, usually of
one and one-half stories in height and
quite broad, occupied mainly by the
white tradesmen whose shops sur
round the plaza, or public park, in the
center of the town. The common
height of houses is a single story.
Nearly every structure in town is of
adobe, although some of the shops and
some of the residences of the well-to-
do are coated to resemble stone or
brick. The prevailing tint, however,
is brown, like caked mud. Builders
mold the mud, which is of clayey ma
ture, into brick-like shapes, which
harden under the sun. Then the
mouldings are piled up nine or ten
feet high, perhaps, and of thickness
varying from three to four feet. The
cracks between the layers are stuffed
with a mixture of adobe and straw,
which acts as mortar and cement.
When the walls are finished, young
trees, like bean poles, but thicker, are
stripped and laid across as the basis for
roofs. Courtyards are not uncommon.
Wherever they occur the street door
opens on a hallway, which leads, after
few feet, into the yard. The dwell
ing in such cases faces the yard, and
there are apt to be no windows or
other openings from it on the street.
Adobe seems to be as impervious to
the weather as stone. Army officers
say it makes the warmest houses in
winter and the coolest in summer of
any material within their knowledge.
A walk through the town at even
ing furnishes commentary on the
loose moral condition of society. 1t is
certainly within bounds to say that in
one-third of the houses surrounding
the plaza, and on San Francisco street
for block from the lower corner of
the plaza, open gambling goes on
nightly. Concert-saloon attractions
are in some instances introduced to
bait visitors, who enter to find one
side of the room a bar and along the
opposite wall gambling tables few
feet apart. When the games are not
going on right under the nose, a print
I ed card directs the way to the back
room. This is the case in the saloon
through which until lately was the
only entrance to the hall in which the
atrical performances are given, when
ever company ventures so far.
There happens now to be also a side
door to reach the theater without
going through the saloon. AT table
in one of the resorts gaudily-dressed
young Mexican woman presides
There are private gambling rooms in
the same neighborhood frequented by
tr desmen and military people. The
officers formerly had a club, where sal
aries were transferred oftener than
payday warranted, but it was luckily
broken up, and there is no likelihood OF
its revival. On almost any of the
streets leading off from the plaza ar,
dives quite as pernicious as the gam
bling houses. Many of them art
dance houses, and there nightly art
held what are known as bales (bisle),
or balls. There is no admission charge,
and visitors have the privilege of Sc
Letting their partners without formali-
ty. After each dance all hands march
to the bar Beer is the common drink
on such occasions, and twenty-five
cents pony is the price of it.
Wants TO Side.Track the Boys.
Two thousand miles of switches laid
| 1n r;n ~ tho fret civ rnnpfhS of tho ,,o, -