simple matter to require the proprietors to set apart a portion of the space exclusively for women. But this the authorities have not the decency to do.
Miserable as are the mesones, the 25,000 homeless Mexicans who spend their nights there are fortunate compared to the thousands of others who, when the shadows fall upon them, find that they cannot produce the three centavos to pay for a grass mat and a spot on a bare floor. Every night there is a hegira of these thousands from the city's streets. Carrying what pitiful belongings they have, if they have any belongings, moving along hand in hand, if they are a family together, husband and wife, or merely friends drawn closer together by their poverty; they travel for miles, out of the city to the open roads and fields, the great stock farms belonging to men high up in the councils of the government. Here they huddle about on the ground, shivering in the cold, for few nights in that altitude are not so cold that covering is not sorely needed. In the morning they travel back to the heart of the city, there to pit their feeble strength against the Powers that are conspiring to prevent them from earning a living; there, after vain and discouraging struggles, at last to fall into the net of the "labor agent," who is on the lookout for slaves for his wealthy clients, the planters of the lowland states.
Mexico contains 767,000 square miles. Acre for acre, it is as rich as, if not richer than the United States. It has fine harbors on both coasts. It is approximately as near the world's markets as are we. There is no natural or geographical reason why its people should not be as prosperous and happy as any in the world. In point of years it is an older country than ours. It is not overpopulated. With a population of 15,000,000, it has eighteen souls to the square mile, which is slightly less
