The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-09-03
THE CHANGES IN MEXICO.
RAILROADS DOING AWAY WITH
MANY OLD SOCIAL CUSTOMS.

city Of Merico Correspondence Boston Herald
Everything in Municipalities, socia
life, commercial habits, etc.-is in state OF
change. The old order is slowly giving way
to the new. The ecclesiastical regime has
given place permanently to the civil and
military regime. The men on top here are
no longer powerful bishops, but men OF
affairs, with sword in one hand and law
book III the other, and the common school
is springipg up on every side. The railways
and the telegraph have done wonders in
changing things in this country, and, when
the railways are mentioned, not much
credit can be given the earliest Mexican
railway, that between Vera Cruz and this
city, for the line is not long enough, does
not touch enough large towns and penetrate
a sufficient number of states to change the
national habit.
Things went on at the old jog trot till the
! Central railway threw its long steel band of
over !, 300 miles down on the great plateau
of Mexico AID brought The chief cities Of
the lakeland into daily communica ion
| with one another. Not only wore large
| towns aud cities tied together with the steel
rib bon, but hundreds of once completed :
| isolated haciendas, or great rural estates
each petty principallty in itself-were
| placed in connection by steam with the
large towns. After the Central was opened
| the different branches of the large
| Mexican families, scattered over the table
| land began to get on social terms once
more. People began visiting who, in the
days of the plodding stage coaches, rarely
or never saw one another. In the old days
it was a big undertaking to come down
| from the city of Chihuahua to the City of
Mexico; such a journey was something to
prepare for, and to undertake only after
ones will had been made. You might be
| two months on the road or six weeks; you
were pretty sure to meet robbers. and it
was, therefore, not well to take much cash
along with you; and then, too, the dill
gences had a happy -go-lucky way of rolling
over at times and splitting the passengers.
Things move quickly here in this blessed
railway era 1t Is but few weeks since the
city of Guaialajara got into railway COM
municatiol with this city, and, for the first
time in its history, the charming tropical
city which is the capital of the state of
Jalisco, aud posses ing $4,000 inhabitants,
was placed in communication by railway
with the modern world. Before Nay last it
required eight or ten days, according to the
weather. for the Guadalajarans to get
to Mexico. Since the Pullman
sleepers began running between the
ment among their respective inhabitants,
any many of the best families OF these
cities, allied by blood and marriage, are
going to and fro in quite the same way eS
Americans go from city to city. And the
same ease of communication is now possible
all over the tableland, rendering possible
sociable changes never dreamed of before
people here got into the connection with the
big, bustling, modern world outside.
-, ft,r,;gbi,r,- =,
marked improvement. In one great furni-
ture shop, the other day, | saw $40, 900
worth of exquisite tapestries ordered for a
| single private house. There were tall vases
| in the windows valued at $1,000 pair, ana
parlor sets up in the thousands. There are
| houses in Mexico furnished like palaces, and
| filed with articles brought from the finest
workshops of Europe The other day
saw in a great shop, which has resi-
dent partner i'll Europe buying articles of
| luxury, a statue ordered for a Mexican gem
| tleman which cost Sc, 900, and this was to
stand in hall. Mirrors worth S., 900 were
| in stock, and the most costly classes of
porcelain and chinaware. There are sew
| eral of these rich shops here, and all seem
to be making money. Naturally, the rail-
ways, in changing customs and ways
of life, first snow their modifying
influence in externals, as in dress and
house furnishings, but change is bound to
| be made in social customs Mexico derived
| its habits Of life from Spain at time when
| Spain was still overlain by Moorish tradi-
| tions and customs. Colonial Mexico faith
| fully 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. The Moorish
house holds its own here, with its quiet ex-
| terror and lavish adornment within: with
its barred windows and heavy gates rather
than doors, and its grouping of all the liv-
| ing rooms around a courtyard, thus making
house as open as day inside, and destroy
| ing that privacy we gain i'll the north from
the system of placing chambers upstairs.
The Mexican house, with its rooms con-
muuicating by glazed doors, and eacA
room opening by another door upon a cor
ridor, is almost semi-public. Its air of
privacy consists solely in the big outer
door and the barred windows Inside
these houses, many OF them as beauti-
full as a dream, filed with birds and flowers,
and gently noisy by the FLASHING of foun-
tains, live the women, whose outer life is
hedged about with absurd old Moorish ira
dltions, contrary to the native Mexican
spirit of liberty and to the tendencies of the
age. Mexican women are the severest
critics of the ancient customs. They rebel
| against Unem, anu sign TOT greater
measure of social freedom. Ask almost
any senorita, and she will tell you that "ife
is stupid and dull, 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 a young girl con.
tented with the old order of things, restrict
her reading TO her prayer book; don't let
her see a novel or a newspaper, and keep
her Gagged up in the house. Thea, perhaps
she will imagine that this is the lot of
women the round world over But women
are keen, and it doesn't take long for them
to discover that men have made the rules
by which one-half the human race are ex-
pected to live in meek subsection There is
not man alive with the soul of mouse
who would submit TO the rules governing
women, even in the freest countries. When
a girl of Is goes out on the street she does
not wish to be protected" by 6-year -old
boy cub in knckertockers, She thinks, and
rightly, that she ought to be able to 60 by
herself. if she so wishes. and that il men
will speak to her and annoy her, the police
ought TO lock then up. And soc is exactly
right. A woman, young or old, should be
as free from moles;atlon in tho public
streets as man, aud if she is not, then
the lamp posts are lacking their
fittest ornaments. In this big City OF
Mexico, with rich houses, great churches,
electric lights, street cars, luxurious shops,
and all tine appliances of civilization, there
is moi single, solitary cafe where lady
can go without a male escort TO take an ice
Ixl,N Oh -, 4.