Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-08-15
,rescoinp. All the houses of the better classes

freacoing. All the houses OF the better classes
are frescoed instead OF being papered, and n
Mexican plasterer at fifteen cents day will turn
out effects that would do credit TO Italy. They
have all Of the care and honesty In their work
Of the true japanese artist and will labor for
weeks on a wax figure to produce q certain ef-
feet. and they make wonderful pictures out Of
feathers that surprised the Spaniard. under
Cortez and you can buy these same pictures or
have them made TO order here in Mexico City
today.
They work like the Japanese. each in his
own little dwelling. and when they have made
enough to start out for a selling trip many of
the artists take their packs on their backs and
peddle ont their wares over the country. met
q basket seller out in the fields near Mexico
City today. He had about fifty baskets on his
back, and these. the result of u months work. he
was bringing into the city to sell His leather
pantsloons were profusely patched, but his
white sack-like shirt as clean as falling
snow and the cotton drawers that fell down
around his bare brown feet were clean; and in
this cleanliness / see another likeness Of the
Aztecs to the Japanese. These people take fire.
quent baths and they are always washing their
clothes. The poorest peon wears clean white
cottons. md frequently see both sexes bathing
together here, as they DO modestly and with 10
thought of shame in Japan. So far l see moth
ing about these Indians to connect them with
our savages of the western reservations. They
are different people and they could never
have had the same origin.
THE POOR PEOPLE.
As class these Mexican Indians are perhaps
the poorest people on this continent. Three
hundred years ago they were the richest, and
Montezuma gave Cortez plates of gold and sill
yer as big wagon wheels and these people
made his soldiers spurs of gold for their horses.
Since then they have been the slaves of their
conquerors. They have been oppressed and
beaten and worked for generations and it is
only within a few years that they have had
the chance to be anything else. As they
today hundreds of thousands of them
are hOpelessly in debt and are as much
debt slaves as are the debtors Of Siam.
Millions of them live from hand to mouth and
only the fewest have what the American negro
of the south would consider competency.
Peonage or debt slavery was abolished in Mex
leo In 1873. but in practice it still prevails.
These Indians, many of them. are honorable
and all of them are great lovers of home and
the locality in which they live. The huts which
they occupy on the farms of their master cred
itors have been the homes of their families for
generations, and though they are not bound by
law TO work out their debts they do so and in
cur others. SO that they keep themselves and
their families in bondage for years to come.
They have no hesitancy about going again into
debt when once free. and Americans who
trying to farm here on our methods tell me it
is almost impossible TO keep their men without
they are their debtors.
ALWAYS IN DEBT.
They never get anything ahead, and when
they want to get married they usually borrow
enough to pay the priests and the fees and get
the wedding outfit. and this makes them debtors
for years. Their employers pay them SO much
in food and wages each day, reserving a small
amount out of each months wages to 60
toward the debt, and as their wages range in
different localities from about IS to 50 cents a
day 1t will be seen that there is little hope for
their supporting their families and paying
their debts. In some parts of Mexico boys get
cents day and in others the average farm
wages are 19 cents per diem. On
the Mexican plateau the wages range
from IL to % cents and along the lines of rail
road. where track layers and construction COM
panies have paid more. they have become con-
-iderabiy higher. On the farms these Mexican
Indians work right along for these wages
They lay off only for Sundays and feast
days, and they appear 20 be industrious quiet,
subservient and good laborers. Even If they
are in debt they change their masters bv
saying that they wish TO leave. and by getting a
new master to assume their debt and take
them. In such n case new contract is entered
into and the Indian stays with his new master
till he gets dissatisfied and gets another master
to pay his debts and take him in. This debt
slavery exists in other branches of industry as
well as farming. Factories have their poems.
and mines have their debt slaves. The COM
pany store exists here as it docs in the mining