The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-01-09

placed in their hands and a belt of
cartridges over their shoulders. 1t is
to be feared that many faults and
shortcomings, evil practices and
crimes are laid at the door of the
Mexican nation when it is only this
class OF hoodlums that should be held
responsible. From their ranks in the
large cities of Mexico come the large
numbers who fill the jails and peniten-
tiaries; it is they who maintain the
wealthy traffic in the drink known as
"pulque," the fermented juice of the
maguey plant, which has been such a
curse of the people of Central and
Southern Mexico, and it is they who
! furnished in the olden days, before
Porfirio Diaz put an end to them, the
| bandits and highwaymen who infested
the roads and byways in the noun
| famous districts.
These leperos boast of their courage
and bravery, and it is undoubtedly
true that many of them will face a
knife or rifle with all the stoicism
| of an American Indian. The proudest
title that one cares to assume is that
he is 'muy hombre,' very much of
a man." and all classes of society
outside of his own come in for invec-
tives of all sorts and all tending to
prove that the male portion of those
| classes is lamentably lacking in the
manly element. When one of these
| fellows gets stuck with dagger or
slashed with a machete, and is, in
consequence, carried to the hospital
for repairs, he usually refuses to give
| the name of the friend who sought
to slice him up, saying that he him.
self is ''muy hombre," and that when
he gets out of the hospital he will
take suitable care Of his opponent.
Their Religious Side.
Not much can be said regarding the
religious side of this class Of people.
respect for the church than they do
now and when their faith would com.
pare favorably with that of the lower
classes of any nation. But prohibit
tive laws, governmental attacks on the
Church, the Vaccinations of Freema-
sonry, political turmoil and unrest,
coupled with the sitting of their
schools by the Reform Laws of 1857,
have created within them a disregard
for religious belief and religious forms
of worship. Their fathers held for a
long time to the faith introduced by
| tho Gna11iuI1 friorc 1aniyiT9O with IL q
few notions and practices that they
had inherited from the Toltecs and
Aztecs. But heather rites and cere-
monies in many places have prevail
ed over the Christian faith, and the
moral sense of this class has been
perverted from infancy. Lacking the
care of the mother, who spent the
greater part of her time in grinding
the corn for the "tortillas" of the
family, or in carrying food to her
husband in Jail, or in inhabiting those
precincts herself, the child would
grow up in an atmosphere Of complete
abandonment and vice. He early
learned what the inside of the jail
was, for he often accompanied the
mother on her visits and as soon as
he was old enough to commit crime
he went there on his own account
He was early taught to be 'Emuy HON
bre" To be "muy hombre" in child
hood is to be able to quaff a wooden
bowlful of pulque before acquiring the
power of speech, sometimes alternat-
ing his drink with the nourishment
taken from the maternal breast His
language need not embrace a. large
number of sentences, since an obscene
word thrown into his talk supplies a
vast number of verbs and adjectives
No Swearing.
The Mexican of the lower classes
and of any class we might say, is
never guilty of taking the name OF
the Deity upon his lips in any often
sive sense. He will not swear nor
curse. Even the saints and the name
of the Blessed Virgin are never in.
voked, unless it be as mere exclama
tons of surprise or pain. The swear
words of the Mexican are always OBJ
scene. But they do not use the pro
family so common among Americans
OF course, the vile epithets that one
hears when passing a group on the
streets in Mexico are not heard among
the intelligent, educated, polite classes
who carefully abstain from the use Of
explosives of any kind. In other coun
tries profane language usually tends
to wound religious sensibilities; it is
speech that usually desires the bad
fortune or a sort of eternal condemna
ton of the speaker or OF somebody
else. But among people who have
sprung from the Spanish and Indiar
races these offenses against gooC
morals take form of nasty Ian
guage, with a most surprising inco
herency of expression. Obscene eX
pletives will be sprung upon you il
most illogical connections and il
places where you can see no possible
reason for it. But then, is not tha
the case with all swearing?
So it happens that the peon in his
infancy acquires habits of swearing
and drinking, and these vices tend tt
dull the moral sense, and, in a way
to make stoics of that class of people
The priests, ever watchful over thei
people, are constant in their effort!
to curb and destroy these habits, bu
the disorders of the country, the fagi
tious lives of the rulers and the opel
onto oonicpo of tho Covornnont fouarf