The record-union., 1895-05-25
MEXICAN Poems.
Most Patient, Down-Trodden People
in the World.
Philosophers and Stoics-An Odd Ad.
mixture of Indian Taciturnity
and Castilfan Grace.

and Castilfau Grace.
Personally, I know the poems well,
writes an American lady to the Provi.
dence Journal. | have gone among them
| in their own places, and l tried to make
their wretched existence more endurable
sometimes, but they are so poor and there
are so many of them that it would take a
great deal to do any good. But they
don't expect you to help them; there is q
stoical Indifference, submission to fate
about them that shows their INDIAN
blood. They complain not, for they
know it would be to no effect. They
simply drift along in their dreary.
poverty pinched lives, asking nothing.
They are utterly without hope or ambi-
ton; the thought of the morrow does not
disturb them. They shrug their shoulders
if you mention it to them or ask them
about the future. "Pues, quion sabe,' ~
(who knows?) they say. To-day is all
they can cope with-to-morrOw may care
for itself.
People-philanthro opists-shoulds see the
places in which the poems live, right
here, in this very city OF Mexico. l have
seen them, and though have seen slums
before this. l do not think l care to be
again i'll the filthy, gloomy, pest-stricken
parts of this city, where they live just
like animals. For one thing, 1t Is hardly
safe to go among them too much. They
say there are some places here, sluns,
that even the police would rather resign
their places than go into, and after what
| have seen l am sure that 1t cannot be a
matter of wonder.
1t is in these slums that the "tifo'' Is SO
horribly fatal. / shall never forget last
year. when this dread disease was spread
throughout all the city, emanating from
the peon slums. when one would sac in a
single day string after string OF cheap
black street cars-I would rather not
give the exact mum bers-laden with their
cheap black boxes, going out to Dolores,
the cemetery. 1t certainly was depress-
ing sight, one not easily to be forgotten.
When stricken with the disease they
could do nothing, of course, for they had
no doctors, no medicine, no food-noth-
ing. One needs therefore not wonder
when one reads OF the terrible work of
the typhus and The fearful death rate
during the spring months in the city of
Mexico
AS a rule, I believe most people don't
find poems Interesting. Well, even if
you care only for the great ones of the
earth, you may want to know how the
other half lives, and wish even taste of
the humble tortilla and pulque Of the
Mexican. But if you have any of the
milk of human kindness in you and are
of such disposition as to think this self
same peon has a soul just as you have
and can teel and be miserable and happy
it he has only tiny chance, you might
care to study him. He is worthy Of it,
tor, in his own way, he stands alone, dis
-. ft,.<
descendant as he is Of the proud old Toll
tees and Aztecs, with civilization that
makes our boasted Anglo-Saxon history
seem but brief tale of yesterday.
The thing that appeals to one most in
the peon is his peculior admixture of
aboriginal and Spanish traits. They are
the most Stoical. most Indifferent people,
1 believe, on earth-that is, the Aztec.
Take one of these poor, ragged, dirty fell
lows wandering along here now in San
Juan, barefoot, cold, nothing to warm
him but his old ragged tilma, wrapped
around him, and muffiing up his face so
that only his sad. hopeless eyes can be
seen-take him and torture him, as they
did here during the frightful days of the
Persecution-burn him with fire. put him
on the rack, or tear the flesh from him
bodily-I don't believe that you could
make him cry for mercy. Just as his
Aztec ancestors, he would suffer any
thing before that
They are fatalists. Whatever comes
they meet with always the same sad,
hopeless submission to fate, expecting
nothing else. Poverty and oppression has
been their birthright since Cortes, the
brutal that change should ever come, or
that they should rise above it, never
seems to enter their minds.
In what strange contrast to the Indian
characteristics come out the Spanish
traits. The poorest peon among them
has real, inherent grace and courtesy is
manner, dignity and gentleness, that of
odd and pathetic against back ground os
rags and dirty old tilma and bare brown
feet. But it is natural to them; none of it
is put on," as it is often with the Anglo
Saxon. 1t is their birthright, and not
even the oppression of hundreds of years
has been able TO take it away from them
[ like it myself. 1t is only this touch of
romance, Old World grace, that makes
these poor ones endurable.
l shall not soon forget being helped
once over some stepping-stones in the
Morelos River, down i'll the country, by
a peon. He was clean, thank goodness.
but he was barefoot, and had an old bat
tered straw sombrero and ragged clothes
But none of the powdered and beruffled
and bewipged courtiers of the year -four
Lord 1900 could have taken me across
those horrid slippery black rocks more
carefully ,deferentially or with more grace
and courtesy than that ''tierra caliente''
peon. If l had slipped, or even got
tiny bit wet, l am sure he would have
wept! Yes. it was an experience, and I
like to remember it.
And, too, how they do enjoy them
selves, if you give them even so tiny an
opportunity! Such little bit OF thing
makes them happy-they are more like
children than anything else, so easy are
they to please, and SO little have they to
be pleased with. They are fonder of
music. flowers and children than any
other people in the world, and for this
reason one cannot believe them wholly
bad.
MHENEXER the Goxernment wants