The Irish standard., 1903-02-07
TOURISTS IN MEXICO.
What Newspaper Correspondent Says
of Them.

| VI
| In last Tuesdays Herald" Boston)
Mr.. Guernsey, the special Mexican
correspondent of that paper, had some
excellent fun ut the expense of the
superciliOus American tourists with
| whom Mexico is overrun. He tells
about meeting Il Young Thing recent
y who at once tried to impress him
with the extent of her knowledge of
foreign lands, of literature, of science
and of everything else under the sun.
This Young Thing was presented to
MIR. Guernsey, he says, by "a wander
ing college professor who should have
been kept at home chained to refer
ence book desk in the Boston Public
Library Among the superior speeches
made by the Young Thing Mr.. Gucrn-
sey chronicles this:
"'Of course the Mexican women, l
mean the ladies Of the upper class,
are not highly educated; they stay at
home and never read, and their lives
are narrow, for they must be very
much like the Moorish women or the
upper-class Egyptian ladies-just con-
tented, you know, in dull and aim
less way"
What happened then Mr.. Guernsey
tells as follows:
'"Ihen l explained, hope without
unduly irritating her, that in tropical
lands people generally avoided SIREN
nous thinking, that they kept their
eyes sound and bright by refraning
from books. that they found peace
and cOntcntment in their homes and
did not usually go g,dding over all
lands to learn that which is easier to
he acquired ut home; that the Moorish
ideal certainly made for mental tram
guilty and that if the club ladies
could be locked up in hnrcms ana fed
on dates and perfumed confectionery,
their husbands, brothers and male rel
ntivcs generally would emit n sigh Of
relief that would echo over all the
lands Of modern civilization.
"Why. what barbnric scntimentsv
cried the Young Thing.
| "Then l told her that there were
ladies' living in the very houses, coun-
try homes of upper-class MeXicans, on
either side Of the car track, who had
lived for years ut time in Paris.
spoke good French, subscribed for the
best periodicals Of the vile lumiere,
md had even sojourncd ut the Wal
dorf-Astoria in New Yark.
'Really? gasped the Young Thing.
"The college professor, who spoke
French as it is taught in We high
school. put in his cultivated oar.
"'But surely they cannot follow, as
our women do, the trend of modern
thought
'"Then l had to explain that the
trend of modern thought was trem-
cndous bore, that n woman who
made her home place of daily JOY
and peace, who was loved like sister
by her children, who could make 100
kinds Of delicious 'dulces' or preserves,
and manage troop of servants so
that there were always some of them
on hand to get dinner, was worth all
Of old man Ibsen's talkative ladies'.
"But they are bound III superstition
and under the dominion Of the priests,
objected the bespectacled man Of
thought.
'That always has to come One is
ever ready for it. The Pullman car
porters have got it on the tip of their
glib tongues. Every four-by-six So
biologist who arrives in Mexico repeats
it, and it is part of the tourist
creed"
Much more the Young Thing and
the professor said that amused the
"Herald's'' correspondent, which we
would like to print If we had space,
but as an Offset to their remarks about
the Superstition" of Mexicans we will