Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1884-02-27
The Mexican Climate.

The climate Is another disappoint.
ment. We are told that the tempera-
ture never varies more than ten degree.
from year to year, but stands eternally
between 60 and 10 degrees; that it is q
summer land of fruits and flowers,
cloudless skies and perpetual sunshine.
All this Is true in certain sense, and
yet it is the meanest climate on the face
Of the earth: Although far within the
tropics, the valley of Mexico lies at an
altitude of nearly eight thousand feet.
and the summit of Mount Washington,
you know, Is only between six and sew
IN thousand. In summer, during the
five months of rainy season, certain
hours of every day are devoted to a de-
luge; and in winter, though fruits
abound and roses flourish, there is a
damp chilllness in the air which pene-
trateS the very marrow of ones bones
worse than the densest fog London ever
knew. 1t is climate of contradictions,
aggravated by the absence of all con-
venience for producing warmth and dry
ness. That master painter of cities,
Cannalitti, would have delighted in the
remarkable Transparency of this atmos-
phere, through which the distant hills,
twenty miles away. look like a barrier
at the end of the street.
The sky is dark, ultramarine blue,
and May mildness is in the air at noon
on these Jantary days worthy of ''Nap-
les, the Beautiful. The plaZas and gar
denS are gay with flowers, great bouquets
Jas large as cartwheels can be bought
for 25 cents (which in Washington
would cost from 80 to S25); fruits are
as plentiful as stones IN the streets
Strawberries, red-ripe, at three cents a
bushel, great granades de China, POM
egranates with crimson hearts, lines,
mangoes, a thousand luscious tropical
varieties of unknown names, and loads
upon loads of golden oranges, forty of
which are offered for a ''madeo.n six
cents.
The dark-eyed daughters OF old ''Cas-
tile" go fitting about the streets in
summer dresses and almost universally
with no wrap or covering for the head
but the lace mantilla, a tiny corner of
which ispinned upon the back hair, falls
lightly over the shoulders and IS careful
ly crossed in front. But there is an
other side to this charming picture,
The ancient ''casas" and modern palac-
'eS-all built alike on the same general
plan of Moorish architecture-have
walls from four to nine feet thick,
which retain dampness eternally, and
are guileleSs of any manner of heating
arrangements. No stoves or CRATES are
possible, because there are no chimneys.
and thousands of rooms, opening into
the inevitable inner court, have only
the one door, which serves also as q
window, for the a imittance of sun and
air. The result is rheumatic, ague-
produc NJ, neuralgia-provoking atmos-
phere from the accumulated mold or
damp of centuries, in which one lives,
and speedily dies, unless much out
of doors. \ few enterprising Ameri-
cans have tried the cold comfort of
eOal-oiI stoves, to the great detriment of
lungs aid pockets with petroleum at
81 per GALLON, and not a few of them
have Inadvertently committed suicides
by experimenting with charcoal braz-
iers. Almost constant exercise in the
open air is necessary here, and to pre-
serve health one soon becomes a peram-
bulating drugshop, stocked with qui-
nine and mescal. The knowledge that
for more than q thousand years this
has been the site Of a populous city.
with no possibility of drainage, but on
the contrary has been drained into from
all the surrounding cOuntry-effective
ly destroys the most rabid prohibition
lists desire to take water "straight. -
Those ito the manner born," or to the
manner educated, never drink water at
all, except in combination, Imported
wines, which are cheap and plentiful,
are the universal table drink here as in
Europe, and the native table beer, mes
cal and other beverages made from the
maguey or century" plant, are nee
eSsary to health and far less harmful in
their effects than the fatal water guz-
Zling which our dear but misguided
Ohio friends insisted upon. Drunken
ness Is rare sight indeed In this and
other countries where cold water is not
made hobby. In our own beloved
land, and especially in that State now
known as the "stepmother of Presi-
dents;" We have begun at the wrong end
of tie question, and are making drunk
ards of our boys with diabolical presiS-
tency-hrst by exciting the spirit of
Mother Eve, which is the heritage of
all her descendants when forbidden
fruit is in question; and, second, by
permitting the manufacture of poison
GUS compounds, instead of having pure
beverages as carefully regulated by law
as the quality of our burning fluids.