Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1885-03-27
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How Our Sister Republic Looks TO- American
Eyes-The Railroads and People. 4.

How Our sister Republic Looks 70 Amsrleal
! Eyes The Railroads and People.
j. d. Stevens, d born southrpn, who
has spent the last three years of hi
life in the state Of Durango, IN Mexico
has been ii the city for few days,
E says The Omaha Bee, and, being man
who looks at life as it passes by him,
gives some very interesting facts con.
corning the institutions, internal inn
provements, customs, and habits OF
the people of that wonderful republic.
The Mexican government, under the
presidency OF Portirio Diaz, has been
very lenient with and given much en-
couragement to railroads. The Mex
lean Central railway, with its north
ern terminus at Ell Paso, runs almost
due south to the City of Mexico. The
huntington system extends at present
from Eagle Pass. Tex, to Monclova,
the capital of Cohahuila, and will soon
be completed to Mazatlin, in Cinaloa,
crossing the Mexican Central at Lerdo
at right angles. Besides these two
roads there is the Mexican National
entering the republic at Laredo, run
ming to Monterey, thence to the City
OF Mexico; the English railway extend
ing from the capital to Vera Cruz, and
several other minor systems. The
aforementioned road was built exclu-
sively by English capital, at cost of
S22,0O0,OO0 for some two hundred
miles of railway Other roads are
also being projected. In all trains the
law compels the railways to have
three classes of cars. On the first class
the passenger rate per mile, estab~
lished by law, is cents, the second
cents, and the third II cents. All the
railway lines are doing good bust
ness and pay falr rate of interest on
the Investment.
There are only two classes of people
the rich and the poor, or the poems
- and they are as far removed from
one smother as the castles of India.
The rich own all the landed estates,
and the poor are their menials, per-
forming their labor with the servility
of slaves. A man in the rich class who
does not own 100000 acres of land is
considered poor. The landowner
rules over his hacienda with the dig
nifty and royalty of a lord. He lives
in a large adobe house whose broad
roof sheltered his ancestors for many
generations past. In it he lives in a
splendor far SURPRISING that of the
negro owner in the palmiest days of
slavery. From his hacienda he looks
in every direction and sees nothing
but his own domain, upon which goats,
cattle, horses, and sheep are grazing
in countless numbers. One thing par
ticularly striking about the adobe
buildings is their quality to resist the
tooth Of time. In Durango, founded in
1910, are buildings erected at that
time and still inhabited. The poems
are probably the most satisfied and
contentented class found anywhere.
Their ambition and energy have been
blighted by seeing no hope and the
insurmountable barriers between
the two classes. They live en-
tirely in the present, their only object
in life being TO obtain sufficient
amount of maize meal and a few
grains of black coffee. Their habits
and customs are as quaint and antique
as those seen in the pictures of Roman
days. They carry water for their
masters upon their shoulders, wear
leather sandals, ride and pack jack
asses the same as their ancestors one
hundred years ago. They envelop
their legs in loose zouaye breaches or
calsions of white domestic, wear q
shirt of the same material, and always
cover their heads with good hat.
Prostitution among the women of
the peon class is very common. The
laws of society, however, are not so
inexorable there as among the people
of this nation. Fallen women fire.
quently reform, are received back
into society, and their past sins
forgotten. The poems are forbidden
to associate with the rich, and are
found with them only as nlcnials and
servants. Among the wealthy the
parents look after the chastity OF their
daughters with an eye single to it's
preservation. The Young Mexican
gallant is allowed to see his jnamorata
only in the presence of q member of
the family. She is permitted to go out
only when attended by her father or
her brother, and it is considered an act
of indiscretion, often made the sub
ject of comment by her more modest
sisters, to leave the hacienda without
this protection. The great mass of the
people at present are ignorant. but
free schools are being establish and
a compulsory system Of education en-
acted which are doing much good for
the republic. The schools now are
largely attended and the young Mexi-
leans mind i5 found to be both quick
and active. In nearly all the schools
English is being taught. which Ian
guage is looked upon by them as the
one in time to be generally spoken.
They look upon in American with rev.
erence, and a. almost supernatural
being. They consider the United
States as their protector, whose action
in the past, has always. been for their
good. Stewards enforcement of the
Monroe doctrine in 1865, when Maxi
milan, with his invading hordes. had
driven Juarez out Of Mexico. has nev-
er been forgotten by them. An Amer
lean is given there more protection
than Mexican, and the president al
ways STATUS Aeauy W Plotlue LIE Aoi-
mer with an escort through perilous
section of tho country without OK
pense. So Jealous of his protection is
the government. THAT Mexicans often
remark and complain of the partiality.
Another great characteristic Of the
American is his politeness. Even
among the poems this attribute is found
the same as among the rich. No one
is boorish, and the. "po]iteness OF the