pounds; if five hundred, twenty-seven pounds. About the doors of the principal banking-houses were to be seen groups of professional porters (cargadores) who gained a livelihood by carrying loads of coin in ixtle bags from one part of the city to another. Where collections or payments were to be large, and the distance to be traversed considerable, regular organizations of armed men, and suitably equipped animals—known as "conductas"—were permanently maintained; and severe and bloody fights with bandits were of common occurrence. At the great cotton-mill at Querétaro, as already noted, the organization of a conducta—men, arms, and horses—for making collections, was as much an essential of the business as the looms and the spindles. "It was obviously impossible to carry even a moderate amount of such money with any concealment, or to carry it at all with any comfort; and the unavoidable exhibition of it, held in laps, chinking in trunks or boxes, standing in bags, and poured out in streams at the banks and commercial houses, was one of the features of life in Mexico," and undoubtedly constituted a standing temptation for robbery. This state of affairs continued until 1880. The Government, the banks, the merchants, the railroad offices, and private individuals transacted all their business in silver coin;
