The Coolidge examiner., 1936-06-05

Washington, d. C.-NNU L service.
)UADALAJARA, venerable city
r of MeXico's west, is one of
MeXicO's tourist meccas.
Sleepers run from Los Angeles
through to Guadalajara. Rails
also link the city with the sea at
Manzanillo; still another system
ties it with Mexico City, with the
Gulf of Mexico, and the Texas bor-
der. These railways, with the ma
tons steadily growing net of motor
highways. make Guadalajara an ac-
tive distribution center. Here cheap
electric power, ample labor, and
abundant raw materials stimulate
various industries. These include
spinning and knitting mills, candy
and cracker works, and shops ia
nous for their beautiful tiles and
mOsaics.
The arcades that shade the side
walks before stores facing a plaza
shelter many street vendors. nat
peddler walks majestically along
with 10 or 20 hats for sale, stacked
on his own head, one atop the 9th
er. like a pagoda. Another carries
q long string of sandals. Some are
of straw, others of rawhide, and
few made from old automobile tires
cut into SOles.
Country poems usually wear bag
gy white drawers; but custom now
DEGREES that this badge of rural
servitude shall not be worn in
Guadalajara streets. SO, at the edge
of the city, pants shops" are open
where trousers may be rented.
Just check your drawers there and
rent a pair of pants, as impecunious
American students may rent evening
clothes for a party! Changing sar-
torial standards, however, are de-
stroying this simple industry.
Indians arrive in the city with
baskets of assorted fruits, guavas,
gourds, tiny lemons, cactus pears
and mangoes. On the pavement
they arrange little piles-one kind
of fruit here, another there; then
they squat down, silently awaiting
buyers. If you want fruit, buy it,
but don't ask questions.
Toys, candies, soft drinks, post
cards, newspapers, pottery, medal
lions of the saints, small melons
white on one side like fish's belly
everything from mule gear and
old tools to carved-woOd sticks end
ing in ornate filigree balls for stir
ring chocOlate-are spread out for
sale on the sidewalk.
Good Merchandise in the Stores.
Inside the large stores, of course,
is modern merchandise. Some Amer
lean women, wise in local ways, say
that if the stores don't carry the
particular hat or gown they wish,
clever native women soon make
them-copying, if need be, from no
more than a picture from an Amer
lean fashion journal. Most lingerie,
dress goods, millinery, soaps, per-
fume, and jewelry are sold by
French merchants. Machinery,
hardware, and such heavy goods
are usually handled by Germans.
Few Americans are found in re-
tail trade; they, with the British,
are more interested in mines,
ranches, power plants, railways, or
banks.
If you buy any sizable article in
store, the merchant whistles @kpya
street porter to carry it home for
you. Persons of position would lose
caste carrying big parcel through
the streets. Porters even carry
big bags of silver coin to and from
the banks-and for some reason are
seldom m0lested.
Buy your dead mans bread
here" bakers sign may read
around All Souls day. At that time,
some MeXicans believe, the spirits
of departed relatives return to dine
with their families. The dining
table becomes an altar, and some
foods are served in strange shapes,
such as candy skulls, big and little,
with cherries for eyes, ribs and leg
bones made of chocolate, or cakes
baked in the form of cOffins.
Many churches in Mexico were
built on sites of ancient Aztec tenn
pies, the heads of whose idols were
cut off by jealous Spaniards. In
some churches fragments of heather
idols are built into the walls. After
the conquest, Spain built literally
thousands of Mexican churches.
They dominate Guadalajara. From
here the padres marched, building
missions all the way to California.
Devotion of the Poems.
Horses and rebels were housed in
some of these churches, with priests
and nuns deported during the revo-
lutiOns. But the faithful carried on.
Pious poems came for miles on their
knees to the churches. Old women,
shouting the chants and litanies or
counting their beads, crawled to the