The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1902-02-27


10, which is about 100 miles
southeast and Gaudalaiara
about 450 miles west from the City Of
Mexico. These are places of about
100000 inhabitants each and are among
the incest cities in Mexico, but 1 have
never been to the latter named place.
Chiipancingo, where earthquakes
wrought such havoc few weeks ago,
is the capital of the state of Guerrero
1t is 140 miles south from the City of
Mexico and has population of about
10000. The important seaports are
Tampico and Vera Cruz on the east
coast, Gulf of Mexico) and Acapulco
and Guaymas on the Pacific. At al
most every railroad station and boat
landing travellers are besieged by women
and children beggars.
The City of Mexico is the one great
place of interest in all that country.
All Mexican cities are so compactly
built that they look to an American to
be scarcely more than half as large as
they are. The City of Mexico with its
almost 100000 people covers smaller
area and looks smaller than st. Paul
with half the population, and yet most
of the buildings in Mexican cities have
but one and two stories with sprink-
ling of three-story buildings. In the
City of Mexico three-story buildings
are rather common and there are just
a few four-story buildings, but up to
the time of my last trip there, two years
ago, there were only four or five build
ings with four stories.
The streets of Mexican cities are mar
rover than those of our towns, tho not
nearly so narrow as those of some Eu-
ropean, and almost all Asiatic cities.
But every city has at least few streets
that are barely wide enough for two or
dinary vehicles TO pass, and most of
them also have one or two wide streets.
Monterey and the City of Mexico both
have a boulevard that is as wide as the
widest in our cities. No Mexican city
has suburban park, but every city
has at least two or three small parks or
plazas conveniently and centrally To-
Gated. The government maintains sew
eral large brass bands, one for each Of
the larger cities, and these play in the
plazas on certain evenings of each
week, always on Sunday evening, and,
in the City of Mexico, Sunday morning
and afternoon. These bands move
from city to city, superseding one an
other every two or three months, eX-
cepting those in the City Of Mexico,
which are permanent fixtures. Here
the famous Seventh regiment banu,
now called the presidential band, with
its 90 instruments, plays in the Ala
media every Sunday morning from 10
to II o'clock and always attracts thou
sands of people. This is the celebrated
Mexican band that has made two or
three tours of our large cities and also
played at the Worlds Fair in Chicago
in 1898. 1t is acknowledged to be one
of the best bands in the world.
There are also two military bands in
the City Of Mexico and one of these
plays in the Zocalo every Sunday after
noon for the pleasure of the poems,
the uncommonly common common
people. the Zocalo is the second best
plaza, and the poems are not permitted
to loiter in the Alameda during the
Sunday morning band concerts. But
they have full sway in the Zocalo Sun
day afternoons, and in fact all day, and
and they swarm there by the thousands.
The Alameda is beautiful plaza cov-
ering an area of two squares north and
south and three east and west, with nu-
merous wide walks, ample seats, foun-
tains, etc., and the intervening space is