The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1886-07-22
IN A MEXICAN INDIANS HOUSE.
A Massive, Ancient Portal-wretched-
ness and Misery.


A Massive, Ancient Portal Wretehed'
moss and Misery.
Walk STRAIGHT ont east. mass the south
side of the palace from the grand plaza,
cross the bridge over the wall or canal,
and 90 straight on to No. II. This No.
II is a great rusty, creaking portal which
opens into paved court where at least
100 babies are playing over the rough
fiagstones or about their mothers az they
grind, or wash, sor knit, or sew. This
massive and ancient portal is the door OF
about fifty homes"
AS you enter you see iarge brass sign
fastened up on the side OF the wall IL
is secured there by big paddock. These
large signs that you see locked up ON the
walls all about the city are usually nch
and massive plates of solid silver. This
is the doctors sign.
And surely, surely 1t is needed here.
The smells! And yet any fagstone Is as
clean as soap and water and broom can
make it. Look in at each door as you
pass. The floors are like snow. 'Ihey
are scrubbed and washed almost perpet-
ually. There is no cleanliness IKE thus
Mexican cleanliness anywhere. And yet
it is such helpless, silly might almost
add such dirty-cleanliness! This Is the
part OF the city where you are almost
constantly taking of your hat TO blue
and red and curiously pictured comma Il
Now let us look at these houses. The
doors are all open. Why? Because the
only light that ever enters these caverns
is through the door and wooden win
dow on hinges. In all these forty or fifty
houses not single pane Of glass, not
single current of air can pass through
one of them. Bear in mind this is the
sample middle-class Mexican house, not
the Indian adobe hut at all. These
houses are all stone; all under the police
and sanitary regulations OF Mexico City,
and are entirely orderly and respectable.
And yet so wretched and miserable are
these people that am certain II Amer
cans were to live here they would Lay
life down as a burden too dreadful TO De
borne. But You never hear OF SUICIDES
here. And, indeed, why should they
kill themselves3 They die so fast here
that the youngest OF them need not 70
wait very long. Take on your nat;
more collins on the backs OF the little
bow-legged Indians are passing Dy the
great portal. The walls OF these houses
are from four to six feet thick; every
house is fortress, you see. The rent Is
"a month for house on the ground;
the floor above Is %. The houses have
but one room, one door. A large family
will live in one OF these dark, damp
caves: Their children are born here;
from mere they bury tneir numerous
dead. They try hard TO ne happy. Ihey
sometimes dance, when the coinns are
not passing, on the clean nagstones In
the court.
There are holes in the fiagstones down
the center of the long court into which
all the slops are emptied. The sewer is
clogged up sometimes. Then they lift one
of the fagstones! and the thick. green;
and poisonous water is made to creep on
and out to the open gutter in the level
street. If ever the yellow fever climbs
to this height and sets down in this val
ley there will not be soul of this print
tive and helpless people left on the banks
of these dank lakes. You imagine them
idle? ignorant? i must repeat again and
again the Aztec is the most industrious
creature on this earth. And do not think
him ignorant of books. Ignorant he is of
all the laws of health, helpless in taking
care of himself, for the master has had
his heel on his neck for centuries; but his
children are at school. And many an old