The Indianapolis journal., 1899-01-29
THE MEXICAN SENORITA
SOME THINGS SHE MAY AND MAY NOT
DO TO AMUsE HERSELF.
Her Life Consi. is Chiefly in Talking
and Gazing at Her 'NOviO,-Her
Traits and Personal Beauty.

there has been SO MUCH o. masculine rap
ture over the soft-eyed Mexican senorita and
Ter fascinatlons and her beauty that any
thing in the way of facts and novelty ought
to be welcome. Once there was a man who
was honest He spent a fortnight in the
City of Mexico, and admitted fearfully and
in hushed tones, as of one who burns that
which he has adored; then, more openly and
at length boldly, with pride in his courageous
yeracity, that in all that time the one
pretty girl he had seen turned out to be an
American.
This was too sweeping. Even among the
senoritas there are rather pretty girls.
Among the women of the peon class, the
women whose heads and shoulders are
wrapped in the graceful rebozo, there is
beauty But a senorita will not understand
you if you say so. However, the girl of the
City of Mexico is not the typical one of the
country, though the prevalent idea in the
United States of course, is that all beyond
that town is waste land and mud villages.
Away off to one side Of the republic, up
five thousand feet among the western noun
tains, there is city called Guadalajara. 1t
is a beautiful city and Old, and it boasts an
orderly, well-governed population of two
hundred and fifty thousand souls Except
in that it is exceedingly clean, this, by the
Mexicans, is counted the typical city of
Mexico. For the capital is so Americanized
that the very street venders talk English.
But in Guadalajara there is little to attract
the capitalist and the syndicate, and it is
out of the route of ordinary travel.
The senorita is uncontaminated by the
bold freedom of the Gringa, and she har-
bors no disturbing aspirations for greater
liberty in her placid breast When she is
CHI ic cd in IA n a hl9pk-
shawled nurse, &C od-natured and not over
clean. She wears wonderful caps of lace
and colored silks and a false slip, long and
flowing, of the same, over her simpler paDy
clothes. When she is little older she Is
lace into long, stiff stays and sent to the
convent, and at night she walks IN the
plaza and begins to think about noWo.
The noViO is thencefOrth the one aim ana IN
terest of her life. She first knows that he is
likely to become such, because ne has stared
her out of countenance whenever she has
come upon him in the streets, and has
turned squarely about on the sidewalk and
gazed after her, which is good manners and
a mark of proper appreciation OF her
charms. Then he is always to be found in
the plaza when she is there.
ON THE PLAZA.
And the plaza itself, since it is a national
institution. and the stage whereupon are
enacted many of the most thrilling scenes
of her life's romance, merits a word. 1t is
a garden surrounded by a wide walk Sew
eral times a week the band plays there at
night and the damsels who would look their
tolerant horror and surprise when told that
in the States a girl may in the daytime walk
in the public streets with a man, come in the
darkness two or more unattended from
remote parts Of the town. They join the
line of women who walk from west to east,
and watch the line of men who walk from
east to west. Latterly the spirit of the
age is creeping In, and man, upon rare oc-
casions, joins two girls and walks for
time with them. But it is not usual For
the most part the two streams do not min
gle The black one of the men pours stead
fly along, the mult-colored one of the girls
does the same, and no word of greeting is
exchanged, though a man may bowie has
the option-and woman may return the
salute
There are rows of chairs around the Plaza
upon both sides of the promenade. They
are full in the glare of the arc lights, under
the trees. and in one of these the senorita,
when she wearies of walking, seats herself.
Then the novio takes chair opposite and
proceeds to stare. If she likes him she also
stares. If not she talks to the girl who is
with her-for if two Mexican girls were to-
gether for twenty-four hours they would talk
every moment of the time-and observes her
friends filing past with the walk accounted
graceful which is a hitching motion that
would seem to jar the very brain. All are
| round -shouldered and push out their chins;
they themselves admit the defect with the
calm satisfaction in it of the provincial;
They scorn the suggestion that a course of
carrying loads and water jars upon their
heads might give them the majestic port
Of the women of the lower class.
There is q great deal of unostentatious
wealth in GuadaIajara, and the girls who
drive through the narrow white streets in
carriages that would do credit to Central
Park send to Paris and the city for their
gowns and hats-gowns and hats of which
the belle of Pumpkinville would be proud.
Among the curiosities of Paris, the place
from which they import those hats, is not
to be seen. The system of fierce lacing,
whose aim is the prevention of the all but
inevitable Sun0FflHOfIS weight which iS fha
buSbear of the senorita. has produced no
supple waists nor slender grace. The bod
ice of the senorita is hopelessly square.
And there are two girls in the city who
have had the first idea that their magnifi-
cent hair should not be burned and kinked
| like wool. and twisted in the back into tight
Jumps. One of these mOurns because her
noVio-who has seen and lived in the world
will not permit the cutting and crinkling
of her gold brown locks, and the other is
not yet out of school.
The senorita when she walks must not
| lift her dress, and therefore, pale satin or
! silk or chiffon though it may be, 1T sweeps
clean the plaza. Nor must she cross her
which may perhaps be. why her shoe re-
sembles in shape nothing much as a
| serviceable black fiatiron
THE DAYS ADJUSTMENTS BEGIN.
After the Plaza, and at o'clock, begin
for the Mexican girl the amusements of her
day. If there is an opera she goes with her
famly-the women folk in evening dress,
and their men in anything they choose and
as often as not wearing their hats-and sits
in box. Her novio gets the most advan-
tageous seat on the ground floor and while
the curtain is up looks at her. She of
course looks at him, both with a steady,
unwavering stare, and those who do not
! happen to be similarly engaged derive there
| from considerable amusement. When the
| curtain falls she walks in the foyer and he
| joins her. If he and her family are very
| advanced in their views, he goes into the
box for a moment, and the eyes of the
! world are upon them.
But at ball the novia and her novio may
| dance every dance together-the senorita,
! by the way, is in no way the equal of the
senOr or of the American girl in the terpsi-
! together, in rapt oblivion of all but each
| others selves. From which it may be seen
| shat making ones self conspicuous is diff
| ferently view in different lands.
But 1t is when, as is for the most part the
case, there IS neither opera nor ball that the
fullest sway. The novio plays the bear when
he stands upon the narrow sidewalk of the
silent night streets, interrupted only by the
passing of late groups with their jeers, and
of the Shrowded gendarmes with their lam
terms and of the mounted inspector with
balcony many feet above. He is uncovered
the while, for he is in the presence Of a lady,
and his neck is bent back at an appalling
angle. One who knows explained 1t thus
to me;
Il go under the balloon of my novia' (his
novia, by the way has no chin and queer
eyes. but he does not know IT'D II go under
the balloon of my novia, and / say to hair,
i lOfe YOU She say to me, 'E-ehY / say,
I lofe you and she say, 'E-e-eh? I say