Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-03-31
MEXICO.
XVII-Popular Pastimes.
Bv FREDERIC J. HASKIN.

No people in the world give them
selves over to the holiday spirit more
thoroughly than do the Mexicans.
From the poorest peon to the biggest
bondholder they all enjoy unreservedly
the more than a third OF the year
which is set aside as holidays and feast
days created by religion, tradition and
history. They have their battle OK the
flowers, their bird fair, their passion
play. The railroads give excursions
on forty -nine special holidays. eleven
general holidays and fifty-two Sum
days. No one-room adobe house is too
humble for it's walls to nightly resound
to the musical tinkle of guitar or
the stunning Of banjo; no village
is so small that it's band Of native mu-
sicians fails to gladden. the evenings
with strains Of popular airs.
OF course. the characteristic sport OF
the MeXicans is the bull fight. But that
is whole story in itself. The masses
in the villages and the country dis
tricts. as we'll as the poorest in the
cities, seldom see one Of these exhi-
billions. They appease their love OF
gore by attending the frequent cock
public. With metal spurs sharpened
to razor edge. the life blood OF one
cock or the other will be flowing short
ly, and the denizen of the cockpit
complains less Of tame ROSTERS than
the sun god Of the bull ring protests
against tame bulls. The price of ad-
mission to the cockpit ranges from a
single centavo-half a cent of our
money-to so centavos.
While base ball is too tame for the
average Mexican, it meets with favor in
the better circles. There are league base
ball teams in Mexico. and the game may
yet become the national pastime. But the
Mexican will have to become less hot
for the fast and furious games he de-
mands today
The real Mexican ball game is known
as pelota, a combination Of indoor tennis
lacrosse and hand
Mexican Ball Game ball game so
Is Very Exciting. often 5000 is
waged on a single minutes play. The
game is played in large halls. The play
ers are usually Europeans. and draw SAL
aries ranging from $3.50 to Zoo month
They wear kind of cestus attached to
the right hand. The balls are Of rubber,
and weigh about four ounces. The game
consists in one of the players knocking
the ball against the end wall by striking
it with his cestus. 1t then rebounds, and
the adversary must catch it in his cestus.
If he fails, 1t scores against him. Bet
ting is freely INDUCED in, the house
serving as stakeholder, and reserving 10
per cent Of the bets as its profits. The
"hOuse" also acts as bookmaker upon
certain occasions.
Going to the theater in Mexico is diff
ferent from what II Is in the United
States. Here the playgoer may buy his
entertainment by the act, il he does not
care to risk the chance Of the entire play
being a good one. There are no music
halls in the cities, but in most of them
the moving picture show does a thriving
ing picture parlor where the audience
and then adjourns to the spacious bal
comics above, where it watches the pass
ing show of San Francisco street.
When the Indian or the half-breed goes
to a motion picture show and beholds
some Of those wonderful transformation
pictures in which people seem to rise
up out of nothing and go back into moth
ing again, or a bevy of chorus girls
spring from pumpkin, they get the
shock OF their lives. The padre always
has taught them to regard the work of
the magician as the work of the devil,
and when such films are displayed the
row OF departing poems testifes what ex-
cellent fruit the teaching Of the padre
has borne.
Ooe If thA srosteSf occo,,, nj oh M ante ~