Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1885-05-04
LETTER FROM MEXICO.
Queretaro, Mer., Mch. 30, 'S5.


Mexican Central railway, is rapid
and the view quite picturesque or
rather the succession of views as the
train shifts from one side to the 9th
er of the oft recurring horse shoe
curve. A rich agricultural country
is soon reached and large fields of
wheat, well headed out, and of corn
and barley are passed. The cattle,
sheep and horses are of better size
and condition than north of Zacate-
cas-. The buildings on the haciendas
are more extensive and substantial,
some of them in the distance looking
more like fortresses than mere pri-
vate residences. The towns and cit
les along the line are more numerous
and more populous, one, Leon,
manufacturing town, containing 9O,-
900 population, and next to Mexico
the largest city in the Republic.
More well dressed people take and
leave the train, in short there is evil
dence of better condition with ev-
erything except the laboring class.
The peon is the same neglected, hard
worked, poorly paid, sorry looking
mortal here as everywhere else in
Mexico.
The peon on the hacienda, and
probably three-fourths of the labor
ing class are employed on haciendas,
is paid 25 cents per day, boys be-
tween 10 and IS years of age 18
cents, and those between II and Is
6 cents. Out of this pitiful allow
ance the peon must feed and clothe
himself and family, if he has one,
always purchasing the scant supplies
necessary for upholding life of his
employer, who keeps the only store
allowed by him upon the hacienda.
The law is such that for any advance
to the laborer towards his services,
the employer owns him body and
soul till the debt is discharged and
he may do with him what he will.
There are very few poems on hd-
ciendds upon whom the employer
does not have claim for advances.
1t Is almost certain to result from
the inadequate compensation accord
ed, which, though not established by
any written law, has become unalter-
ably fixed by long established GUS
tom with the lords of the soil. An
other part of the unwritten code of
these land owners is not to employ a
peon from another hacienda without
a previous understanding between
the owners themselves the result of
which is that these people for gener-
ations are born, live and die on the
same estate. This system of labor
is little, if any, better than down.
right slavery in its effects upon the
laborer. 1t leaves him with no DOS
sibility of education, no home life
worthy of the name, no liberty ex-
cept to work hard at starvation wag-
es, and no hope of better things.
Fully two-thirds of the whole pop
ulation of Mexico are of this forlorn
class. Those who do not live on the
hacienda work in the mines, or are
used as beasts of burden in carving
merchandise from place to place.
their load being one-half that of the
donkey or $50 lbs. Wherever found
the Mexican laborer is hard worked
and poorly paid. His condition on
the hacienda practically determines
his condition everywhere else; and
it can never be radically improved
till these great landed estates are
broken up and divided into small
holdings; the smaller the better, thus
giving every man a chance to own
the land he cultivates. No one thing
helps more the manhood of the tiller
of the soil than to be able to stand
upon patch of Gods green earth,
however small, which he can call his
own. But this is denied the laborine
man in Mexico; not by public law
for that does not directly prevent,
and yet indirectly it does; for it
leaves uncurbed the tyrany which
capital always exercises over labor
when no legal limit is interposed.
All the land in Mexico is owned
by few thousand men and held in
vast estates few of which contain
less than 10000 acres, and many
from 200,O0 to 800, 900 acres. From
high bluff, near the Tete Graade
mine at Zacatecas, an intelligent En-
glish gentleman, himself the owner
of a fine hacienda near the city,
pointed to an artificial pond of con-
siderable extent several miles away,
which he said was on hacienda which
contained l65 square miles and lay
partly in three states. To illustrate
somewhat the extent of its product
and profit he further said the sales
of grain and straw from it, for the
last year amounted to over 81 1,OOO,-
900.
These land owners. who are mostly
Spaniards OF with only little Indian
blood, are really the lords of the
realm, the richest men in Mexico.
And why should they not be, holding
as they do, the accumulations of CEN
turies wrung from the sweat of labor
at 25 cts. day. But what of the labor
er who must feed and clothe himself
and wife and little ones out of this
scanty sum? His condition beggars
description. The laborlng class are