The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-01-07
A MEXICAN CROWD.
The Types You ( See in It.

The good humor and peaceableness OF
| great crowds of people here have been
exemplified during the past few days
of the public celebration of the inaugu-
ration of President Diaz. How kindly
and considerate is even the poor and too
often despised pelado has been amply
| proved. He has taken his wife and
numerous progeny into the public
streets and has been as attentive to
them as anxious that they should see
! all the sights, as If he had been one of
the more fortunate caste. The pelado
I is as witty as an Irishman, fact not
often perceived, but well known to
men who have made a study of the
Mexican lower class. And he has the
open hospitality and generosity of the
true Hibernian. He has sailed forth
from the tenement houses, filled the
streets taken a really artistic pleasure
in the decorations, always worthy of
admiration here, and watched the
passing of distinguished men in bril-
liant equipages with a sense of national
proprietorship! One must admit that
often the pelado is physically unpleas-
ant, he smells of pulque and garlic and
his baths are, at the most, of annual
occurrence Still his low estate Is not
at fault; he is the social element which
has resulted for nearly four centuries
of neglect That he Is unclean and Of
tends the olfactories, that he is miser-
ably poor is not Of his devising. He is
the disinherited, the pariah of society,
and that he is still warm hearted, wit
ty, and lacking all envy is vastly to mis-
credit There is nothing of the anar-
chist in him.
Above the pelado come the artisan
and petty shopkeeping classes; they
have been much in evidence and their
behavior has been excellent. They
are civilized in the true sense of that
word And we are glad to note, by
many little signs that they are more
prosperous than formerly. Their
women show a growth Of taste and they
have more money to spend than in
other years. The social leaven is
working. A Mexican crowd is pleas
ant one; it is not surly, and does not
stand so stiffly for it's rights" that it
forgets the duty of men and women in
public places to be mutually accommo-
dating and considerable. The people
from the country, the country cousins,
the much ridiculed payos, have been
here in force and it has been giodly
sight to see the sturdy backs, the strong /
manly shoulders of the class who are,
when all Is said and done, the backbone
of this Mexican nation; from them the |
cities are recruited, and the places of /
the worn out and degenerate filed. 1t
was worthy of note during the festal !
days, this spectacle of the strong bod I,
led men, and the robust women from
the interior who keep this nation alive I
among the peoples of the earth. They t
too, were good humored, obliging, and
open-eyed for city marvels The world
can show no better hearted class than
the rancheros of Mexico. Benevolence
and humaneness shines from their
faces. These are men who can sit a
half broken horse, make the fields re-
turn their yield, and keep Mexico
agoingi
The people from the country make
our city population show badly in con-
trast: vigor goes out with city life,
with alcoholism and lack of exercise in
the open air. The hope of Mexico lies
in her country people and they have
not been spoiled by overculture and
the artificial refinements of modern
ivilization.-Mexican Herald.