The Republican., 1891-07-17
A MEXICAN HOME.
A Country Where Courtesy and POliteness
Reigns supreme.

A Country Where Courtesy and POlteness
Reigns Supreme.
The MeXicans are a we'll hammered
people and nothing more offends them
than brusqueness, or a disregard of
those minor courtesies which, after all,
make life run more smoothly and keep
alive in every one a sense of personal
dignity In Mexican household there
is courtesy between master and mistress
and the servants, and servant leaving
your employment. even for fault
which has rendered dismissal impera-
tive, will come and bid you polite
good bye, and offer his or her services
for the future. Here is case in point:
A man employed in my Office received
permission the other day to resign his
post to go to his old home for several
months in order to receive a small in
heritance; he came to me and said:
"Senor amo (master) l wish to thank
you for your kindness to me in your
good house, to wish you perfect health
in my absence and to express the hope
that when return 1 shall find you we'll;
and desire to say to you that l am al
ways ready to serve you in any way"
A really long speech, and delivered in
the manner of courtier; all this from
humble man without education.
have discharged servants, but never
have they left, angry though they
might be, without coming to ''despe-
dirse," or take farewell, and, encoun-
tering them thereafter on the street,
they have always bowed and saluted
with great politeness. 1t is in
the blood, this sense of courtesy,
this kindly human feeling, which makes
life very tolerable in Mexico, and rem
ders less apparent the great gulf which
exists between the classes of society.
When one arises in the morning the
servants always ask how one has passed
the night, and when i'll their solicitude
makes one feel that they are part of
ones family and constitute a portion of
ones relationship with mankind. At a
brilliant society wedding the other day,
in the most aristocratic church of the
city, the servants OF the family attend
ed, dressed in their best, and showed
their keen interest in the great family
event, for in Mexico your servants feel
proud of serving in family where they
are well treated, and take an interest
in their masters prosperity. 1t is with
them 'our family" and everything you
possess adds to their importance. In
the north we have cooks who assert
that they are ladies' but here we
have cooks who are, in the true sense
of the word, well bred.
In Mexico one has the sense of what
home really should be, a place of pri-
vacy and kindly feeling. Ones house is
not run over by all sorts of intrusive
people, for here the idea of home being
place of rest and, in reality, ones
castle. is very strong. In the States the
idea that a home is place where the
owner has right to live as he pleasSs
is not known. If you put a bottle of
wine on your table a legion of perform
ers are ready to come in by the back
door to find out if the "scaudalouS re-
port" is true: people who don't like
your style of religion send you tracts;
bores, male and female, call on all sorts
of pretexts, and you might as well live
in the open street. Society has resolved
itself into a universal prying committee.
In Mexico people go in for stone walls
and iron gates well watched, and there
is a rule, observed by all, of minding
ones own business, a tremendous crime
in the north where you are expected to
mind every body's business, and to allow
your own affairs to be overhauled by
the general smelling committee.-Bos-
| ton l,lnln