The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-12-17
IMPRESSIONS OF MEXICO
EDITOR CHARLES HOPKINS CLARK
 LECTURES BEFORE KENTCEUB.

Neighbor, Mexico-Land, People and
 Institutions as Seen Through Yankee
 Eyes.
 The first lecture in the Yale Kent club course was given last evening by Editor Charles Hopkins Clark of the Hartford Courant. A large audience greeted the lecturer and listened with the keenest appreciation to his descrip- tion of his visit to Mexico. President c. A. Fuller of the Kent club introduce ed Mr. Clark, who spoke in part as fol- lows on the subject Impressions of Mexico:"
 Mexico is so near us in miles that it can be reached by four-days' journey by cars from New York, but Is so diff ferent from us in it's people, customs and institutions that one would have to visit the Orient to find people and institutions with which to make & proper comparison. A year ago, in company with MT. Warner, I visited Mexico and spent a few weeks there. Not having a wide acquaintance with the language of the country, could make no extended study of it's institu- tions and customs, but can give you only a superficial impression of the surface of the country itself. In all the time I spent in Mexico I met only one man who was said to speak Eng fish like Spanish. He did.
 First, the surface of the country is so high up that the climate is delight full. The City of Mexico is situated on plateau 17000 feet above the level of the sea. Some of us Connecticut peo- pie go to Norfolk or Mt. Washington in the summer to fill our lungs with air, but the City of Mexico is higher up than Norfolk would be were it set on the top of Mt. Washington. The oity is surrounded on all sides by volcanoes like Popocatapetl which tower above the plateau on which it Is built I must confess that we did not get a sight of these volcanoes for several days, as the city was enveloped in clouds of dust and sand. There is large amount of arid land about the city.
 "The seasons of Mexico are clearly divided into the wet and the dry. The wet season begins in May or June and | regular periods every day during the wet season, in the afternoon and even- ing. It is as nethodical in this respect as our own rains are cratic. A friend of mine who visited Mexico during the wet season told me that he went out every day without an umbrella and re- turned home dry, timing his trips ac- cording to the hours of the day when it did not rain. When we went to Mexico we did not take our umbrellas and had no occasion for using them
 Mexico is continuous series of pla- teaus of attitudes varying from that of the City of Mexico to Tampico, on level with the sea. We rode all day in the cars from the City of Mexico to Tampico. The railroad between these places runs for great portion of the distance along precipitous cliffs of the mountains. In places the tracks of railroads run so near the edge that the ties project over the abyss. The cars even act as though trying not to escape destruction, and even should the cars escape you know that you would not. Three freight cars at one time went over one of these cliffs. They lowered graplng irons 1,700 feet, but all they succeeded in recovering was a graphing iron. Was any one killed?' I asked of the one who told me the incident. No, | nobody but a Mexican was the re- sponse.
 "Often one sees on the track ahead of the engine Mexicans travelling along with their donkeys. These leave the track just in time for the train to pass along. When one realizes the perver- sity of the donkey at times one cannot
 but reflect that should the donkey re- fuse to leave the track the outcome ! would not alone be unfortunate for the animal, but also for the people on the train. The journey is made by some | people in an open car for adventurous 1 pleasure.
 '"The huts along the road are made of reeds and thatch. The men and wo- men are half naked, and the dirty nak-
 ed children lie together along with the 1 dogs and hogs. Natives are frequently
 killed by the cars. An engineer told
 me that he killed seventeen to make up
 time on one trip. The turkey buzzards clean up after the train and make | thorough work of it. All along the | track one sees scattered the white | bones. They nave custom In Mexico
 of erecting a cross where a person has | been killed on the track. I counted
 seven of these crosses in one place. It
 would not seem an at all bad custom
 for us to adopt. It is such sensible
 way of warning people of the danger l of the. rail.
 l ''The whole country along the route
 is parched and shows the lack of wa- ter. So do the people. As rule busi-
 ness men are doing well there One
 drummer I found, however, who was
 not successful and he was selling soap.
 I think, however, if he would give up
 his soap and sell fine combs he would make his fortune.
 | 'One crop follows another in quick
 succession here. I saw in the same 1 fields corn in blossom, in the tossel and in the shook. All the labor is performed
 in the old way. The grain is threshed
 in the open field. Flows were introduce ed from this country and the first thing
 they did was to cut off one handle so | that they would be like the old blow. l Wheelbarrows were introduced and they took off the handles and wheel and l carried the body on top of their heads. | f1nare is fbn stironlus fO rpst