Mexico, California and Arizona/Chapter 9
IX.
SOCIAL LIFE, AND SOME NOTABLE INSTITUTIONS.
I.
THE persons who once lived in these old Spanish palaces, and descendants of the titles of nobility existing before the Independance, are still much esteemed in a certain small circle in the country. There are pointed out to you those who should by right be marquises and counts, and the titles are occasionally given them. The Mexican nobles, from the time of Cortes down, lived in magnificent style in their day. The Count of Regla, who has left his trace after him in many directions, must have enjoyed almost the state of royalty. A single hacienda of his in Michoacan was thirty leagues in length by seventeen in breadth, and, sloping down from the temperate plateau to the tropic, comprised in its extent the products of almost every clime. He fitted out two ships of the largest size, building them of mahogany and cedar, and presented them to the King of Spain. Inviting his majesty to visit the country, he assured him that his horse should tread on nothing but ingots of silver from the coast to the capital.
A remnant of the old noblesse rallied around Maximilian when he came to assume the Emperor's crown. With this, and what remains of Maximilian's court, and some few other families of a peculiarly exclusive turn, a circle is constituted somewhat corresponding to the Parisian
Fanubourg St. Germain. They are sometimes stigmatized as "Mochos," literally hypocrites. They are rich, pass much of their time abroad, protest against the sequestration of the Church property, and exhibit a refined horror at the vandalism of these later times.
"The government," they tell you, "is in the hands of the populacho, the rabble; the gente honrada, respectable society, has nothing to do with it."
In a novel which I have by a Mexican writer, Cuellar, a secretary of legation at Washington, the scene is laid in this faction or clique. "Chona," or Incarnacion, the heroine, or leading feminine character, "had been brought up from childhood more to abhor than admire. The conversations in the family continually turned upon the utter antipathy which the men and things of Mexico inspired."
"They had for visitors Church notables and those of the wealthy who still retained the parchments of their ancestry. If they made any new acquaintance it was some Spaniard lately come into relations with them through the business of their estates."
The fashionable men in the story have been educated at Paris, and become elegantly blasé there as well. In
contrast to these is shown one Sanchez, a vulgar, pushing fellow, upheaved from the depths by the revolutions. He has the
"gift of gab," which he has utilized to make himself a figure in politics; has enriched himself with the spoils of the Church establishment, and secured a good
place under government. He more than hints, however, when he is found to have finally lost it, that he is ready to engage in upsetting "Don Benito" —it is now under the régime of President Juarez that the scene is laid— or in any other convulsion that may promise to again mend his fortunes.
II.
I do not quite know which side the writer himself is on, in this satirical work; it is so bitter all around. It is certainly interesting as showing two such boldly distinct types, one of them at least picturesque, evolved out of the peculiar conflicts of the country. Let us hope that there are few of the dangerous Sanchez pattern in the present juncture of affairs. The Mochos cannot now be numerous nor dangerous, with the wholesale victory of middle or lower class republicanism around them. They have taken little part, voluntarily, in the successive revolutions since their own overthrow, leaving them rather to be fought out by professional soldiers of fortune. They temporize a little; attend, perhaps, the wedding of some rich railway contractor's daughter, in order, as they say, not to draw upon themselves a direct enmity; but they do not open their own houses in return; they do not "entertain."
Don Sebastian Lerdo, spoken of as the most scholarly President the country ever had, is conceded to have been to a considerable extent "in society." He was expelled by Porfirio Diaz, and is now in retirement at New York. The political class since that time has either not been well received in the circle spoken of, or, perhaps too busy with other affairs, has not greatly cared for it.
Such being the case, there are few reunions, and these of an informal character. Nor do the officials give entertainments themselves. Social gayeties, as we understand them, can hardly be said to exist in Mexico. It is only under the neutral roofs of the foreign ministers that they take place with some satisfaction. I had the good fortune to be at the capital during the visit of General Grant, and
to see a social movement which, by the general testimony, was quite phenomenal. There was, among the rest, a fashionable wedding, attended by the President and his cabinet. A "reception" and banquet were given in the evening on the occasion of the signing of a civil contract
between the parties. The religious ceremony took place at church next day. The interior courts of the house were wreathed with flowers, and lent themselves palatially to the festivity, as they always do. The banquet was
spread along the bases of the columns of the arcade.
The young Mexican women are still kept apart from the other sex, and made love to chiefly on their balconies in the good old-fashioned, romantic style. Their manners when met with in public, however, are not so unusual as might be expected. They seem neither more nor less diffident than elsewhere. They are allowed to take part at balls in a slow waltz called the danza —so slow as hardly to be a dance at all— which is chiefly an opportunity for conversation.
The high-contracting parties to the marriage above-mentioned were by no means young, and in general the exceeding precocity of development and early age of entering into the marriage relation supposed to be characteristic of the tropics were not apparent. It was said that mercenary considerations were not frequent, and claim was laid to a good deal of simplicity and honest affection in the settlement of these matters; though how the parties get at each other, under the restrictive system, sufficiently to enter upon a simple and honest affection, is one of those things that remain a mystery. It is said that the young woman who remains single is not stigmatized for it in the common way as "old maid." They say very charmingly instead: "She is difficult. She is hard to suit."
In the country the match-making is often taken charge
INTERIOR COURT-YARD OF A MEXICAN RESIDENCE.
As a general remark, the manners of the lower class of the country are much better than ours, and those of the upper are not as good—not as often based upon real kindliness of heart and genuine desire to be of service. The Mexican promises a hundred things which he has no intention, often no ability, of performing. The American is not without his faults—the more's the pity—but in a general way he aims to do as he agrees. He will often make against the Mexican the reproach of a certain slipperiness a lack of appreciation of the importance of adhering to his word.
III.
Each considerable group of foreign residents, as the French, Germans, and Spaniards, has its handsome casino, or club-house, which is a standing resource for the diversion of members.
A French traveller as far back as 1838 complains of the unsociable conduct of the Mexicans. If something of the kind be still observed, therefore, it is not new. "They abound," he says, "in a superfluity of fine phrases, and it is in this easy way that they discharge themselves of their obligations."
All who know European life, however, are aware that the theatre and the café, with people of the Latin race, largely take the place of the social visiting and entertaining at home prevailing among Anglo-Saxons. Our next-door neighbors, after all, may only have followed, making a little more severe, the traditions of Old Spain. Ladies do not often appear at the cafés, but they are often at their boxes at the theatres, to which they subscribe by the season; and they would go more frequently yet,
MEXICAN COURTSHIP.
the National, Principal, and Arbeu, and minor ones for the working-class.
The entertainments esteemed of chief importance are those of the French opera companies which come over from Havana, on their rounds. A native Spanish operabouffe and ballet, called zarzuela, is much given at other times. For the rest, the theatrical pieces presented are the works, in prose and verse, of the Spanish dramatists current at home, or occasionally of some native dramatist, announced with an extra flourish which his production does not usually justify. They are all announced with a sufficient flourish, so far as that is concerned. There is always going on some especially Gran Funcion as, for example :
"The grand Drama of Customs, Entirely New, in three acts and verse, by the distinguished poet, D. Leopoldo Cano, author of the precious comedy, 'La Mariposa,' entitled 'LA OPINION PUBLICA.'
"This sublime work of the distinguished poet, D. Leopoldo Cano," the bill goes on to say, "was received at Madrid with an astounding acclaim. The Spanish Press has lavished upon it a thousand eulogies. * * * In choosing it for the second subscription night, we feel that the public will know how to value it as it truly merits, and to value at the same time the skill of the Company in their most finished studies and essays."
I do not recollect any of this as very novel, or likely to be of interest if translated, apart from some portions depending upon such a difference of manners and customs as to be hardly intelligible to an American audience. My
acquaintance with the theatre began with a piece at the Nacional, called "The First Patient." There was a young
doctor on the stage, and an acquaintance of his had fallen in love with his wife, and put a note in her work-basket by way of telling her so. The note was conveyed to the husband, who, instead of shooting the imprudent writer, took occasion presently to assume a look of horror, and pretend that the latter had gone blind. Before the Lothario could protest, a bandage was clapped over his eyes, medicaments given to make him believe in his own misfortune, and he was put under a course of onerous treatment.
After a series of absurd situations he was finally released, persuaded by degrees that he was cured. The patient raised the bandage. "Veo! veo!" —"I see!"— he exclaimed, in wild delight.
"Very well, then—see that!" said the husband, thrusting the offending letter under his nose.
This was amusing enough, but I was quite as much amused all the time with the studious efforts of a companion who had come with me —the French engineer sent out to examine mines, before mentioned— who proposed to turn the theatre into a school of languages. He grasped at every word a semblance of which he seemed to catch, and dived for verifications of it into his grammar and dictionary. He resented in his ambition any interpretation of passages which he did not himself originate, and constructed such a theory of the play as its author would by no means have recognized. When the dénouement came, in the bold "Veo!" he seized upon it with avidity.
"'Veo,' cèst bien trouvé ça—'veo,'" he said, reflectively, digesting it at his leisure. "Je vais le retenir ce 'veo;' vous-allez voir"
And so he did, and proceeded to use it vigorously, in the restaurants and the like on the following day.
IV.
Though so much more be still proposed, there are certainly some reasons for self-complacency in the country even from the American point of view. Education is found to be provided for in a manner that awakens admiration and surprise. The primary schools are least looked after, but the pupils who pass through these with a disposition to go farther have an array of advantages open to them at the capital superior to anything of a parallel sort in the United States. The Government maintains national schools respectively of engineering, law, medicine, agriculture, mechanic arts, and trades (for both sexes), a conservatory of music, an academy of fine arts, and a library, provided with an edifice that New York well might envy. It maintains a museum, institutions for blind, deaf and dumb, and insane, for orphans, and young criminals, and a long list besides of the usual charities of enlightened communities. The schools are open without money and without price to all, and there are even funds to provide board, lodging, and pocket-money for students from a distance, who are selected on certain easy conditions.
The students in agriculture pass some months of the year at the haciendas to observe different crops and climates. The graduates of the School of Arts and Measures go out into the world prepared to make their living as carpenters, masons, photographers, electro-platers, and at numerous other trades. Before an opinion is passed upon Mexican civilization the accommodations and neat uniforms of the pupils of the blind institute should be seen; the noble building erected in the last century for the School of Mines; the beautifully clean, wide corridors,
sunny class-rooms, embroidery-rooms, dormitories, and drawing-rooms of the Viscaynas, the national college for girls; and the arcades and charming central garden of the National Preparatory School (in the professions) for young men.
There was a fountain spouting among tropical plants in the garden of the Preparatory School the day I went there, and by the fountain was a young panther, or lion, of the country, as they call it, confined in a cage. The students, young fellows, who did not differ so greatly from Yale and Harvard undergraduates in aspect, except for the dusky Indian complexions among them, came now and then and stirred up the lion a little, making him play with a ball in his cage. They seemed to prepare their recitations walking around the garden or sitting in the ample corridors.
The principal text-books are studied in French or English, in which languages they are apt to be written, and the recitations are conducted in the same languages; so that, what is so rare with us, graduates emerge from these schools very tolerable linguists without ever having been out of their own country.
All these institutions are housed for the most part in the vast ancient convent edifices, which furnish ample quarters to whatever is in need of them—to barracks, hospitals, post-offices, prisons, railway stations, iron founderies, and cotton-mills.
Each state of the republic, again, has its free college. Judging from that of the state of Hidalgo, however, which I saw at Pachuca—its internal arrangements in a very filthy condition—all do not follow very closely the example of the capital.
In the department of jails, unhappily, there is a deficiency. As at present arranged, they can present but moderate terrors to evil-doers. The really fine penitentiary at Guadalaxara is the only one in which modern ideas of penal discipline are followed. There is no death penalty for political offences—under which head the worst bandits would often seek to shield themselves—but the number of offenders is kept down by semi-official lynchings, shooting on capture, into which nobody ever inquires, and transportation to Yucatan. One cannot but look with uneasiness on the slightness of the means of restraint here and there employed. The bolts and bars are often only lattices of wood instead of iron. At the city prison of Belen some two thousand persons are confined. It seemed to me that a large part of them must be much more comfortable than at their own squalid homes. They made a strange spectacle, indeed, looked down upon in their large courts. Of all ages, and for sentences of all durations, they eat, sleep, and work at various light occupations together. No attempt is made to prevent their communicating or staring about. They have good air, light, and food, and are allowed a part of their own earnings. They take a siesta at noon, play checkers, gossip, and even bathe luxuriously in a central tank.
The liberality toward education spoken of is the more creditable since the Mexican treasury is not flourishing, and a yearly deficit is more common than a surplus.
These expenses appear to be regarded as essential, whatever else may suffer. It is the more creditable, too, since the heads of the government do not indulge themselves in expensive surroundings. The American legislator is not himself without his marble colonnades and his furniture of black walnut upholstered in Russia leather; but President and Cabinet ministers here walk upon threadbare carpets in the National Palace. The chamber of the Senate is a modest little hall; and the Deputies sit in
shabby quarters in another part of town, which were once simply a place of amusement, the Theatre Iturbide.
The museum, chiefly of Aztec antiquities, to which one turns with interest, is not of the extent or informing character that may have been expected, and is under by
means brilliant management. Its greatest attraction the arrangement of some of the larger fragments, particularly the great sacrificial stone from the ancient temple
of the war-god, in the court-yard. There is a setting of shrubbery and vines about them, and the sunlight striking in among these upon the gray old remains, produces some charming effects.