Birmingham age-herald., 1895-08-08
CONCERNING MEXICO.
MT. J. laMotte Morgan Furnishes Some Inter- esting Information About the Land
 of the Aztecs.

MT. J. LaMotte Morgan spent several years in Mexico as Ia member of the Mex ican legation. Now that Mexico is so much discussed his observations are of more than ordinary interest. He found that the population of Mexico consists of about 11,000, 900, and nearly 10000, 900 are laborers and live in the most primitive way They wear cotton trousers, a cot ton shirt and live on corn meal and pepper. Many of them rarely get meat to eat. They work for 20 cents a day. The law of Mexico enables the owner of a ranch to keep his debtor at work until he pays out. As the debtor rarely pays up he is virtually slave. No wonder the negroes who went to Mexico long to return. The Mexican farm laborers use a forled stick for a blow, just as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. We can expect little from them as con. Sumers under existing circumstances If they ever become educated up to using what we produce then they would prove good customers. If they would use steel blow instead of forked stick, and wear good clothes, and eat good food we would find a market for our surplus close by.
 The remaining 100000 of Mexicans are of the better class. They live well and are progressive. They buy good deal of machinery from the United States. They have erected two large cotton mills in central Mexico. They buy great deal of cotton from Texas, which is the long staple, and mix it with their short staple cotton. The Mexican tariff has hereto fore been almost prohibitory, but Mex ico is following the example of the United States and is gradually reforming the tariff. Some articles are very costly, such as canned goods Breakfast bacon has sold as high as 75 cents a pound. The rt.aof ell dn1l h0 a 1xNa discounted in exchange for the Ameri- can silver dollar. Some seven or eight years ago the American dollar was worth 20 cents more than the Mexican dollar
 The laborers are paid off in this de- preciated currency. The City of Mex ico is on the high plateau that runs through the center of Mexico, and is a mile and a half above the sea. The cli- mate is delightful, even in midsummer. It is always pleasant in the shade, al- though the sun is hot owing to the rar- flied atmosphere. The season is one per petual spring. During the rainy season it rains every day about o'clock. When the sanitary sewer is completed the City of Mexico will be a garden spot. Some of the objects described by Prescott are yet to be seen, such as the canals and the floating gardens. The tree under which Cortez stopped to weep on his second re- treat from the city is enclosed with an iron fence and is pointed out to strang >ers. A principal street of the city ends at the causeway where Alvarado made his wonderful leap on "nocturne trieste" sad night.
 The inhabitants of central Mexico very much resemble the Aztecs, while those on the frontier are more like the American Indians. Prescott's Conquest of Mex ico" is looked upon by the intelligent Mexicans as romance, and they say he wrote 1t in the libraries of Madrid with ont yiSitinp MpYion The MGyin9ns are civil to strangers and treat the Amer ican traveller we'll unless he begins to boast of the glories of the American re- public.