The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-07-30
LIFE IN MEXICO.
A Country Where Courtesy and
pOliteneSs Reign Supreme
Stone Walls Insure
Privacy.

The Mexicans are a well hammered
people, and nothing more oifends
them than ~brusqueness, or disregard
Of those minor courtesies which, after
all, make life run more smoothly and
keep alive in every one q sense OF per
sonal dignity. In a Mexican house
hold there is courtesy between master
and mistress and the servants, and a
rva leaving your employment,
even for a fault which has
rendered dismissal imperative,
will come and give you a polite
goodbye, and offer his or her services
for the future. Here is a case in
point:-A mar 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 inheritance; he came to me
and said:-Senor amo Qnaster) l wish
to thank you for your kindness to me
in your good house, to wish you per-
feet health in my absence, and to ex-
press the hope that when / return 1
shall fud you we'll; and / desire TO say
to you that | am always ready to serve
you in any way A really long speech
and delivered in the manner OF a
courtier; all this from an humble man
without education.
/ have discharged servants. but
never have they left, angry though
they might be, without coming to
.'despedirse,n or take farewell, and
encountering them thereafter on the
street, they have always bowed and
saluted with great ~politeness. IL Is In
the blood, this sense of courtesy, this
kindly human feeling, which makes
life very tolerable in Mexico, and
renders less apparent the great gull
which exists between the classes OF
society.
When one arises in the morning the
servants always ask how n lras
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 we'd
ding the other day, in the most aristo-
cratic church of the city, the servants
of the family attended, dressed in
their best, and showed their keen in
terest in the great family event, for in
Mexico your servants feel proud OF
serving in a family where they are
we'll treated, and take an interest Id
their masters prosperity. 1t is with
them ''our family and everything
you possess adds to their importance.
In the north we have cooks who as
sert that they are ladies' but here
we have cooks who are, in the true
sense of the word, we'll 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
a place of rest and, in reality, ones
castle, is very strong. In the States
the idea that a home is a place where
the owner has a right to live as he
pleases is not known. If you put a
bottle of wine on your table a legion
of performers are ready TO come in
by the back door to find out
if the ''scandalous report 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 the universal
prying committee. In Mexico people
go in for stone walls and iron gates
well matched. and there is a rule OBJ
served by all, of minding ones W
business, a tremendous crime in the
north, where you are expected to
mind everybody's business, and to al
low your own affairs to be overhauled
by the general smelling committee
ROSfO4l GL0be.