St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-05-13
A TRIP TO OLD MExICO--xI.


Facing Home ward-The Good and the
Bad i'm Mexico-Climate-Lae of Water
and Trees-The Way Protection Works
Religion and Sunday SPOrts-The
Future OF the ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Talk.
My sojourn in Mexico is ended. To-
night at o'clock | start for 11-days'
car ride to Goods country" as the ex-
lied Yankees here call the United
States. AS much as / have enjoyed
and been interested in these new and
strange scenes as greatly as l appre-
ciate the privilege | have had, the
wheels will turn all too slowly and /
shall count the hours till l reach the
land of running water, of green hills
and of trees-the best country of all
the earth-New England.
The writing of these letters has been
hurriedly done. Leaving home on "a
hours notice, | had no time to "brush
up" on history or post myself on many
things supposed to be essential to trav-
ell in foreign land. But if the "his-
tory" in these letters does not agree
with Prescott or Humboldt, the i'm
pressions received are at first hand.
These letters were intended simply as
notes by the way. The exhaustive
discussion of important matters has
not been attempted or thought of. If
these impressions could be summarize
ed they might possibly be of interest
4 L. 49,
land.
First, the climate. Mexico has been
called by some writers the "Italy of
America" whatev er that implies. The
atmosphere seems very dry, and in the
country, pure. There are the wet and
the dry seasons which hold pretty
generally over most of the territory,
though there are some exceptions.
The wet season continues through the
three or four months of what we know
in the North as summer, the dry sea-
son holds, generally undated, the re-
mainder of the twelve months. Pro-
badly the temperature on the table
lands is quite uniform throughout
these two seasOnS-never very cold
and never very warm lin the shaded
even In the middle of the day. Be-
tween the coast and mountain ranges,
it is torrid. The past month has proved
that on the table lands heavy winter
clothing was needed except for five or
six hours i'll the middle of the day. In
January the mercury ran down to 30
and ice formed in this part of the coun-
try. This severe cold was unusual.
Such climate as this would be fine
in New England where there are dry
houses and stoves and fuel, but it
should be remembered that Mexican
houses are damp stone or mud affairs,
without stoves, CRATES, or fuel of any
kind. The cooking is done with a lit
tie charcoal, and where engines are
run or steam generated pine wood is
used which sells for about $24 a cord.
The invalid who comes here for his
health has to lie in bed to keep warm
till the sun is we'll up in the dry sea-
SUI, anu Ill bllC NCO SCoSOh bhC ChOilO
"a hours. Until Mexico builds differ
ent houses ar9 cOntrives some way to
heat them, invalids had better go to
California, or stay at home.
In addition to the deprivatiOns nam
ed, life in this capital is in constant
peril for lack of proper sanitary ar
rangements. Three feet under the
sidewalk is stored the sewage of a
quarter of a million of people. At
certain seasons, or when this gets I'M
endurable to the Mexican nose, the
flag-stOnes are taken up and the sew
age carried off. This was being done
in front of Hotel Iturbide as it's guests
went out to breakfast Monday morn
ing. The unusual death-rate in the
city is thus accounted for.
1t cannot be expected that country
that depends largely upon artificial ir-
rigation can successfully compete in
agriculture with one that is abundant
ly watered by rainfall. A large pOr-
ton of this country cannot even be ar
tificially irrigated, the streams of water
are so scarce, but must apparently for
ever remain desert. The extreme scar
CITY of both water and fuel must large
ly shut out manufacturing, for even
cheap labor cannot make up for the
lack of these two essentials. Perhaps
the fact that everything is so expen-
sive here, is due to both the want of
manufactures and the high "protec-
tive" tariff imposed by the govern
ment. The paper "block" on which
this letter is written cost IS cents. 1t
could be bought in the States for ten
cents.
Some of the customs and habit of
the Mexicans are vicious and democrat
izing. Theft is a prominent vice.
Gambling is very common. Lottery
tickets are peddled on the streets and
hawked about and thrust into ones |
face as freely as the daily papers are
in Boston. As race the people are
unreliable if not treacherOus. AS one
American master-wOrkman said to the |
writer: ''If | send one to do any kind |
of work l must follow. on to see that
he does it." The brakemen and fire. |
men on the Central railway are Mexi- |
cans; the engineers and conductors |
are Americans. Before train starts |
ont on any division, the conductor ex-
amines with lantern, if it be at |