, 1888-10-13

Cold water-Ch1dish Fear of Disease.
Indian Contempt for the Whites.
Most cities have some reason to show
for their location Boston sits by her
broad bay, Chicago by the lakeside, New
Orleans in the bend of her imperial river,
G~uanajuato and Zacatecas by the side Of
their rich mines, but there is no sound or
sensible reason for the location of the
City of Mexico in q low and swampy
tract, when right at hand were building
sights OF Incompatible view, of perfect
sanitary conditions and certain to afford
space for the amplest possible expansion of
the town Temporarily nothing is being
done, on any comprehensive scale, for the
advancement of the plan for draining the
valley of Mexico, and incidentally the
city. A company of Ohio origin IS dig
g1ng q canal under contract with the city
government, and it gets its pay regularly,
as the rulers of the city are good paymas-
ters and honorable in all their dealings.
But the big plan seems to have been
let drop for a while for some reason not
apparent.
Meantime the death rate is extraordin-
airy, and what should be one of the most
healthy cities on the globe, standing as it
does at more than $500 feet above the
sea level, is one of the most unhealthy.
The ravages of what may be termed dis
eases ~engendered by dirt and dampness
are something frightful-typhus fever
(not the milder typhoid), smallpox, which
is always existent somewhere, consump-
ton, dysentery, ETC., carry off thousands
every year. The lot of the poorer classes,
and of those between poverty and com
Portable circumstances is a hard one.
Their dwellings are damp, musty, i'll
smelling, pestiferous. 1t is among these
classes that the death rate is very high,
but among the well to do people who live
on what is here called the primer piso,"
or first floor, OF, in New England, the
second story, the mortality is not greater
than in Boston. The popularity of the
climate is that IFS lack of oxygen renders
recovery from sickness very difficult.
Oncel let yourself run down, and it is hard
getting up again. The languor of the
climate, the lack of life in the air, conspire
to keep the invalid weak, and it is the
rule of the doctors to send patients out of
the city as soon as it is possible to remove
them.
BEDROOMS AT NIGHT.
Out on the hiilsides the country people
are obust and rarely i'll, unless they hap
pen to be of that class who try to keep
bedrooms Theoretically sealed at night.
This prejudice against the night air is
very great and widespread. l suppose
that eight-tenths of the inhabitants of
this city shut up their bedrooms as tight
as a drum every night of their lives. Thus
they breathe their own ~effluvia, and pine
away to the prost-of the doctors and the
drug shops. This fact accounts for the
many mottled ard sallow compilations one
sees. People who have Travelled. or those
who are of receptive minds and have
studied the matter, let the night air cir
culate in their apartments. Their good
blood and clear compilations testify to
their obedience TO hygienic laws.
The dread of the fresh sir is often car
ried to q ludicroUs extent. People sit for
three hours in a dirty, stuffy theatre and
breathe the air Of the sewers underneath
the floors, inhalo all the human exhala-
lions which contaminate the unagitated
air, and then, on going out into the com
paratively pure air of the street, keep
handkerchief to their mouths and noses.
This morning l noticed a sallow woman
riding on the Paseo in her coupe, a lap
dog on her knee. The glass windows of
the vehicle were tightly shut, so that
o of the glorious air of the morning in
that favored spot should by chance enter
her whitening lungs. This was the old
monkish idea; in the converts the pious
brethren preferred close cells and musty
tones. They dreaded water, and soap
was unknown to them.
A curious prejudice exists among many
people here against cold water when they
have q "catarro" or cold in the head. or
even q touch of chill in the bones. For
weeks, till the cold has gone, they reso-
lutely refrain from touching water. An
other popular prejudice here is that
which impels a family to move out of a
house when any member of it has died.
For this reason it is needful to BIZ eau
tiOua in akinn q hnnca or onortpnap+e an
you ave made certain that no one has
recently died therein of a contagious dis
ease. So far does this prejudice go that
many people abandon their old homes on
the death of a member of the family.
CHILDISH EAR OF sEAsE
1t does not seem to be SO much a super
stition as a childish fear of disease. And
yet these same people who would not con-
sent to remain in a house thoroughly and
scientifically disinfected, with new wall
paper and new paint, will move to a house
with a stagnant ditch near at hand, and
will shut themselves up in their bedrooms
at night like herring in a box. The old
houses here show in their construction
the dread of air aud sunshine. With little
narrow windows, brick floors and tight
doors, they were certain to become musty
in six months occupancy. The ancient
converts had windows of the size of prison
windows. Churches were built so that
never by any chance could a breath of air
get in to disturb the ~worshipers. All
this the white man did. But the Indian,
living mainly in the open air of the
high sierras, is a different sort of creature,
a man who can maxi sixty miles or more
aday. He it is who eats with an appetite
his frugal meal, and has the good sense
to beat his idols when they do not grant
his requests Immediately. These are the
men and women with broad chests and O
color that shows red blood and good circu-
lation. They have missed the refnements
Of the white race, but have preserved their
hvers and their lungs. In the heart of
the Indian their Turks a contempt for the
sicky colored white man. He regards his
pale faced brother as a man of artifce and
endless refinements, who must nave at