The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1902-02-27
NOTES OF TRAVEL. @ shlra =.
MEXICAN CITIES.


Unable tropical tree and shrub, MANY of
the trees reaching to enormous Eeights.
This plaza is always cool, and | want
to state right here that the City Of
Mexico is one of the coolest places in
summer that l was ever in, and [ have
been considerable distance north in
British America and Alaska. The hot
test day in the City of Mexico in the
summer OF 1899 was 81 in the shade.
This statement will be dlscredited by
most northern readers, but it would be
vouched for by the editors of the
Mexican Herald and Two Republics,
or other reliable citizens, as we'll as by
the government weather bureau.
Every night in the Alameda one needed
a light Overcoat.
The American legation is situated
just across the street from the
west end of the park. The Zocalo
is ten squares east and covers an
area OF two squares each way. On
the north of the Zocalo is the cathe-
dral, covering nearly two squares; on
the east the capitol; on the west a
mammoth government pawn shop, and
on the south mercantile establish
ments. In this plaza thousands of
poems cOngregate every Sunday, hun
dreds of all kinds of improvised booths
are erected, not only throughout the
plaza, but along the streets adjacent
thereto; scores of men, women and
children standing or squatting on the
streets and sidewalks, many of them
with only few cents worth of dulces,
candies, cakes, fruits or drinks, on lit
tie rough trays on their laps or the
stone pavement.
Besides a grand cathedral costing
more than two million dollars, there
are 1875 churches in the City of Mexico
and IS per cent of the people are men,
bers of them. Now L believe the aver
age American would naturally think
such place as that could be but few
miles removed from Heaven, but the
average American sojourner, be he
Christian, agnostic or anything else, in
Mexico, as in Spain and France, is
struck with what seems to him their
corrupt morals, desecration of the Sab
bath, sacrilege and hypocrisy; for so
far as he can see they have no regard
for any portion of the decaIogue; and
| their version of the command, "Re-
member the Sabbath day to keep It
holy" seems to be, Remember the Sab
bath day to keep it helly;" for the
height of the ambition of most Mexi-
cans is a Sunday drunk, a Sunday bull
fight, and incidentally any other hell
that they may come in contact with
The same persons who break their necks
to get to church at daylight in the
morning would break their necks twice
to get to bull-1ght later in the day,
and some of them are the "ringlead-
ers' of the fight. [ will pay my re-
spects to the bull-ights of Mexico and
Spain in some future paper of this
series. Dueling between men is dis
honorable, disgraceful, inhuman. bar
barous, unciviliZed, but it is tame and
respectable in comparison with the
slckening spectacle presented by the
awful torture and butchering to death
by slow degrees of d score of poor dumb
beasts, some of them being forced by
men to gallop around the ring with
their entrails literally dragging on the
ground and trodden under their hind
feet. But my first trip to Mexico had
the effect of placing me on good terms
with myself and cured me of all un-
easiness as to my spiritual condition;
for if those people are on the road to
heaven the millions of self-respecting
happy-go-luckies and Bob-Ingersollians
will go there in golden electric air