Wichita eagle., 1888-09-04
MEXICO'S SOCIAL LIFE.
THE RAILROAD DOING AVIAN WITH
MANY OLD CUSTOMS.

! The Modifying Influences In E1fernals.
Absurd Old Moorish Traditiens-Ths
| Senorita in Rebellion-The Male Escort.
| Objection to Greater Social Freedom.
Naturally the railways. in changing Gus
| toms and ways of life, first show theirSmodi-
! flying influences in externs.s, as in dress and
| house furnishings, but a change is bound to be
made in social customs. Mexico derived its
| habits OF life from Spain at e time when Spain
was still overlain By Moorish traditions and
customs. Colonial Mexico faithfully copied
| the pattern Of Mother Spain, and stuck to
! the example long after many Spanish cities
| began to be Europeanized. But the influence
of the dead and gone Moor is still strong in
| both Spain and her former colonies Tho
| Moorish house holds its own here, with its
| quiet exterior and lavish adornment within;
| with its barred windows and heavy gates
rather than doors, and its grouping of all
! the living rooms around a courtyard, thus
making a house as open as day inside, and
destroying that privacy we gain in the north
| from the system of placing chambers up
stairs. The Mexican house, with its rooms
communicating by glazed doors, and each
room opening by another door upon corri-
dor, is almost serni-public. It's air Of privacy
consists solely in the big outer door and the
barred windows. Inside these houses, many
of them as beautiful as dream, filed with
birds and flowers, and gently noisy by the
FLASHING Of fountains, live the women, whose
outer life is hedged about with absurd old
Moorish traditions, contrary to tho native
Mexican spirit Of liberty and to the tenden-
cies of the age. Mexican women are the
severeSt critics of the ancient customs. They
rebel against them and sigh for a greater
measure Of social freedom. Ask almost any
senorita and she will tell you that ''life is
stupid and duh, that there is no social
gayety, and that she is tired to death of it,
and wants to go to New York or Paris"
If you wish to keep young girl contented
with the old order of things, restrict her
reading to her pray er book; don't let her see
q novel or a newspaper, ard keep her Gagged
I'D in the house. Then, perhaps, she will i'm
agine that this is the lot of women the round
world over. But women are keen, and io
doesn't take long for them to discover that
men have made the rules by which One-half
the human race are expected to live in meek
subsection. There is not a man alive with
the soul of mouse who would submit to the
rules governing women, even in the freeSt
countries. When girl of Is goes out on tbs
street she does not wish to be protected" by
6-year-old boy cub in knickerbockers. She
thinks, and rightly, that she ought to be able
to go by herself, if she SO wishes, and that il
men will speak to her and annoy her, the
police ought to lock them un. And she is ex-
actly right. woman, young or old, should
be as free from molestation in the public
streets as a man, and if she is not, then the
lamp posts are lacking their fttsSt orna-
mentS.
IN THE CITY OF MEXICO.
In this big City of Mexico. with rich
houses, great churches, electric lights, street
cars, luxurious shops and all the appliances
of civilization, there is not a single, solitary
cafe where lady can go without a male es-
cort to take an ice or light lunch. This is q
humbug, and no wonder Mexican women are
beginning, as they learn Of foreign ways, to
enter a protest against this selfish system,
which turns boy of IA loose into a world Of
temptations, and forbids modest girl the
most innocent freedom I have heard q
lovely lady, the mother Of large family,
say that she would feel uncomfortable to go
with her daughters into the principal restau-
rant here to order ICES But let her take
hobbledehoy boy along and the proceeding
would be proper enough. Great is the magic
of trousers. The best thing for the Mexican
ladies to do is to get up a social revolution,
and inform 'Pepe" and s'Pancho" that they
will no longer be governed by the ghosts Of
dead and vanished Noors, whose sole living
representatives are found in the most de-
graded corner Of Africa. If nearly 1,900
years of Christianity have not advanced CIV
iliZation In great Christian city so that the
mothers OF families and the charming daugh-
tiers of those mothers can 20 about in public
enjoying all innocent liberties, why then we
must confess our civilization veneered bar
barism, and that the brute mob is still too
strong to permit women their just rights.
The objection frequently made to giving
greater social freedom to the women is that
the men, being Of southern blood, are toe
passionate in their addresses, and would, il
permitted to mingle more freely with the
women, begin to pay court to them and
make love in earnest. But I don't believe
there is any less chivalry among Mexican
men than exists in northern nations. The
overstress laid on love in Latin nations
comes from che Moorish seclusion in which
the women live. The young men are poet
ical, and talk of love when they should be
playing polo or hunting, and the mystery
surrounding the life of the women stimu-
lates their fsncies. 1t Is an unhealthy sys-
TEN when young men begin writing erotic
verses at an age when outdoor sports should
engage their attention. The boy in Latin
countries sees, of course, his mother and his
sisters, but like all lads, he has decided
taste for somebody else's sisters. he can't
call on them famiEarly, owing to this fine
old Moorish etiquette, and 50 he must confine
himself to watching balconies and contriv-
ing means to s1nuggle notes to the adored
one by some bride taking servant If he
had been ike an American lad, sent to q
mixed school where no found out that girls
were very much like boys, and that some
are cross and disagreeable, some too spoony
and others too acid, he would not make SO
much of mystery Of the female sex But.
not having passed through that period OF
dsilusionnent, he begins to make love when
hardly out Of short trousers.-Cor. Boston
Herald
Animals Premonitions of Death.
Mr. l. II Craig writes, affirming that anf