Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-23

visit the galleries to have my developing
| done. find the cases filed with pictures
| of girls in wedding wells with uneasy men
standing beside them, and was for a long
| time at loss to know the cause of the
| custom. After leaving the photographer
| the bride and groom return home to the
house of the brides mother or to the estab-
lishment of the groom There is no bridal
tour, and the young people settle down at
once to married life.
THE TABLES TURNED AT LAST
1t is not till now, however, that the man
has any sort of an ownership of the girl
While he is courting her she did Just as she
pleased During the interval between the
civil ceremony and the church ceremony
which lasted perhaps q week she remained
at her home and he remained at his and
though he was her legal husband he did not
even dare visit her. There is little home
life in Mexico There is no word in the
language which expresses our idea of home.
The Mexican house has no fireside nor base
burner stove around which the family gath
ers and the people lack that home charac-
teristic which is such an important element
among the Anglo-Saxons and the Germans.
They are more like the French and the Ital-
ians than US and the Mexican morality is
said to be considerably looser than ours.
Among the lower classes it is notorious
that marriages are on and off at the will of
the contracting parties and among the
higher classes, while marriages stick, there is
q fair proportion of both sexes who have
their sweethearts outside of their own fami-
lies. Girls are 80 secluded before marriage
that they do not learn how to take care of
themselves and after marriage they do as
they please OF course the majority of
women are good in Mexico as they are the
world over; but their ideas of life and vir-
tue are more those of q French girl than
like ours. Americans who have Mexican
wives tell me that they make good help
meets. They are economical and very fond
of their children. The most of them smoke
after marriage, though they have not been
permitted to do so in public before ano
they take care of their houses in the true
Mexican way.
THE QUEER MEXICAN ETIQUETTE
Mexican social customs are much differ
ent from ours At every railroad station /
have stopped have seen grown men rush
into each others arms and press their cheeks
while they hug most frantically and pat
each other on the shoulder. 1 see women
embracing and rubbing their cheeks one
against the other. They throw kisses at
one another as they part and they have a
to their lips and throwing a whole handful
of kisses at once, which is very pretty when
the lips are like ripe cherries and the girls
are young.
When you call upon Mexican family
the lady does not rise TO receive you and
the strangers here make the first calls The
people you call upon drop their work
the moment you come in and they are
full Of polite expressions. They always re-
fer to their house as yours, and an invitation
l got yesterday requested me to come to see
Mexican at my house, on some street, the
name of which never heard before The
Mexicans give few dinner parties and teas
and luncheons are usually confined to the
family. Every woman of the better classes,
however, wants to have her box at the
opera and her carriage and you can see all
Mexico City every afternoon driving on the
Paseo. You know that half of the carriages
are not paid for, but you enjoy the sight all
the same.
NOT VERY GOOD HoUsEKEEPERs.
The Mexican woman is fond of dress, but
she does not waste much time on her morn
ing toilet After breakfast of a Gun of
chocolate and a roll she puts on a Mother
Hubbard and a pair of slippers and Ioafs
about until dinner or the second breakfast.
which comes at noon. 1 don't think. as a
rule, that she is the best housekeeper in the
world, and she is by no means averse to
paint and powder. 1 see dark faces covered
with -four il every crowd 1 enter, and
there are many red cheeks made so by
other means than those of nature. 1t used
TO be that only the mantilla was used as a
head dress. This is scarf of white or black
lace and it is used as q head>dress and q
shawl combined. You see thousands of
them in Mexico City, and they are still the
common head dress here, but at the capital
Paris fashions are coming in. and ugly
Paris bonnets and hats are taking its place
These Mexican girls wear their hair low
on the forehead, and am told that the
bang" came from Mexico. They dress it
up in sort OF Greek knot on the back of