JOAQUIN MILLER AND COFFIN STREET.
Dear old Mexico shows her slippered foot, for summer is here. The
fruit-trees are in blossom, the roses in bloom, the birds are plenty
and everybody is wearing the widest sombrero. From 10 o'clock until
2 the sun is intensely hot, but all one has to do is to slip into
the shade and the air is as cool as an unpaid boarding-house-keeper
and fresh as a "greengo" on his first visit to the city. At night
blankets are comfortable. Tourists are still flocking to Mexico, many
with business intentions, and the United States at present is as
well represented as any other foreign country. Yankees are looked on
favorably by some of the better and more educated class of Mexicans,
but others still retain their old prejudices. However, one can hardly
blame them, for, barring a few, the American colony is composed of what
is not considered the better class of people at home. They have come
down here, got positions away above their standing, and consequently
feel their importance; they are more than offensive, they are insulting
in their actions and language toward the natives, and endeavor to run
things. The natives offer no objections to others coming here and
making fortunes in their land, but they have lived their own free and
easy life and they do not propose to change it, any more than we would
change if a small body of Mexicans would settle in our country; and we
would quickly annihilate them if they would offer us the indignities
the Americans subject them to here.
I dread the return and reports of such people in the States, for
although there are good and bad here, the Mexicans have never been
represented correctly. Before leaving home I was repeatedly advised
that a woman was not safe on the streets of Mexico; that thieves and
murderers awaited one at every corner, and all the horrors that could
be invented were poured into my timid ear. There are murders committed
here, but not half so frequently as in any American city. Some stealing
is done, but it is petty work; there are no wholesale robberies like
those so often perpetrated at home. The people are courteous, but of
course their courtesy differs from ours, and the women--I am sorry
to say it--are safer here than on our streets, where it is supposed
everybody has the advantage of education and civilization. If one goes
near the habitation of the poor in the suburbs, they come out and greet
you like a long absent friend. They extend invitations to make their
abode your home, and offer the best they own. Those in the city, while
always polite and kind, have grown more worldly wise and careful.
The people who give the natives the worst name are those who treat
them the meanest. I have heard men who received some kindness address
the donor as thief, scoundrel, and many times worse. I have heard
American women address their faithful servants as beasts and fools.
One woman, who has a man-nurse so faithful that he would sacrifice his
life any moment for his little charge, addressed him in my presence as:
"You dirty brute, where did you stay so long?" They are very quick to
appreciate a kindness and are sensitive to an insult.
Speaking of honesty they say the aquadores, or water-carriers, are the
most honest fellows in the city. They have a company, and if any one
is even suspected of stealing he is prohibited from selling any more
water. At intervals all over the city are large basins and fountains
where they get their water.
For four jars, two journeys, as they carry two jars at once, they
receive six and a quarter cents, or one real; twelve and a half cents
if they carry it up-stairs. Their dress is very different from others.
They wear pantaloons and shirt like an American and a large leather
smock, which not only saves them from being wet but prevents the jars
from bruising the flesh. They all wear caps, and the leather band of
the jars is as often suspended from the head as from the shoulders.
Americans who come to Mexico to reside should take out identification
papers the first thing. It costs but little and saves often a lot of
trouble. People when arrested have little chance to do much even if
they be innocent; they are thrown into prison and allowed to remain
there, without a trial, for often a year, and it is said a Mexican
prison gains nothing in comparison with Libby prison of war fame.
But if a man has his identification papers he can present them and
command an immediate trial, and it is given. There is an American now
lying in prison here for shooting a Mexican woman; the woman was only
shot through the arm, and yet the man has been in jail, without even
a change of clothing, for over a year. He is in a deplorable state,
without much hope of it being bettered. The American Consul seems to
have a disposition to help his countryman. He has been here but a
month, and his first work deserves praise. A man by the name of John
Rivers, or Rodgers, shot a fellow in self-defense.
It was a clear case, but the main witnesses had no desire to lay in
jail, as the law requires, until the American's trial came up, so they
fled the country. The American could speak no Spanish. His trial was
poorly conducted, and he was sentenced to be executed at Zocatagus, up
the Central road. Consul Porch heard of the case. He studied it out,
found the man was not given a fair trial, and hastened off, reaching
the scene of execution but a short time before the hour appointed,
but in time at least to postpone the tragedy. There is one great
disadvantage Americans suffer from, and that is the government sending
out ministers and consuls who have no knowledge of the language in
the country to which they go. It would be a mark of intelligence if
they would make a law, like that in some countries, providing that no
man could represent America unless he had a complete knowledge of the
foreign tongue with which he would have to deal.
In my wanderings around the city I found a street on which there are no
business houses or even pulque shops--nothing but coffin manufacturers.
From one end of the street to the other you see in every door men and
boys making and painting all kinds and sizes of coffins. The dwelling
houses are old and dilapidated, and the street narrow and dingy. Here
the men work day after day, and never whistle, talk, or sing, as they
go at their hewing, painting and glueing, with long faces, as if they
were driving nails into their own coffins.
I soon related my discovery to Joaquin Miller, and he went along to
see it. Then he said, "Little Nell, you are a second Columbus. You
have discovered a street that has no like in the world, and I have
been over the world twice. It's quite fine, isn't it?" and he gave a
hearty laugh. Of course, there may be other streets somewhere just the
same. We could find no name for our new treasure, so we simply dubbed
it "Coffin Street." I am sorry I have no picture of it to send you, so
you could see the coffins piled up to the ceiling; a little table in
the center where the workman puts on the finishing touches, after which
they are placed in rows against the building, by the sad-visaged and
silent workers, to await a purchaser. Near this somber thoroughfare is
another street where every other door is a shoe shop, the one between
being a drinking-house.
Many of the shoemakers have their shops on the pavement, with a straw
mat fastened on a pole to keep off the sun. Here he sits making new
shoes and mending old ones until the sun goes down, when he lowers the
pole, and taking off the straw mat, furnishes a bed for himself in some
corner during the night.
Wealthy Americans who have a desire to invest in land should come to
Mexico. There is surely no other place in the world where one could
get so much out of a piece of property. One end of a field can be
tilled while the other is being harvested, and one can have as many
crops a year as he has energy and time to plant. There is no doubt that
anything can be cultivated here. Of course, peaches and apples are not
plenty, because they only grow wild. Why, even a nurseryman would fail
to recognize them in the small, scraggy, untrimmed bushes. The native
fruits are fine, from the reason that they need no cultivating or
trimming. If they did, Mexico would have a famine in the fruit line.
Land in Mexico is very cheap, and the Government collects a tax only
on what is cultivated. One sensible man, by the name of Hale, came
here from San Francisco a few weeks ago to buy property. A minister
of the Gospel, a particular friend of Hale's, is authority for it
that Senor Hale bought from the Government sixty-five thousand square
miles--larger than the whole of England, I believe--for $1,000,000.
I don't think one would ever tire of the gayly-colored pictures Mexico
is ever presenting. Though in Mexico two months, I can find something
new every time I glance at the queer people. This little basket vender
is but one of thousands, but we find he is the first one to wear his
white shirt without tying the two sides together in a knot in front.
He must surely have forgotten that part of his toilet, as it is the
universal style and custom among them all. Very few Mexicans, even
among the better class, wear suspenders. They wrap themselves about
the waist with a bright-colored scarf, with fringed ends, and this
constitutes suspenders. Many of the better class wear embroidered and
ruffled shirt fronts.
The fruit venders have beautiful voices, and sing out their wares in
such a charming manner that one is sorry when they disappear around
the corner. They are sometimes quite picturesque with the fruit and
vegetables tied up in their rebozo and baskets in their hands. Why the
women have all their skirts plain behind and pleated in front I cannot
say, but such is invariably the case. The men have horrible voices
when they are out selling. There never was anything to equal them. I
wonder if our florists would not like to buy orchids from the man who
passes our door every morning with about a hundred of them strung to a
pole which is suspended from his shoulder, only two reals (twenty-five
cents) for exquisite plants, with the rare ones but little higher.
Mr. A. Sborigi, a Pittsburger, was in Mexico on a visit. When he landed
in Vera Cruz he went into the country to see the place. Hearing music
in a small cabin he drew nearer and recognized familiar tunes. "Wait
till the clouds roll by," and Fritz's lullaby. A man came out and
invited him in, and after a short time he said he was a colored man,
that his name was Jones, and he came from Pittsburg, Pa. He is married
to an Indian woman and has about twenty children, ranging all sizes.
Mr. Jones is king of the villa. In one room he has a floor, a thing not
possessed by any other inhabitant there, and his cabin is superior to
all others. He is very proud of his wife and children, and has not the
least desire to return to the Smoky City. He speaks Spanish, French,
and English fluently.
When Mr. Sborigi was asked for his ticket on the Vera Cruz line, he
jokingly handed the conductor an envelope that he had put in his pocket
at New Orleans. On it was printed in English, "Tickets to all points
of the world." The conductor took the envelope, looked at it, punched
it and returned it to the donor. Quite amused, Mr. Sborigi tried it
on others, and he not only traveled the entire distance to Mexico,
but traveled on at least half a dozen branch roads leading from the
Vera Cruz line to beautiful towns in the country. He took the punched
envelope back to Pittsburg as a memento of the cheapest journey he ever
took.