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346 whites have given them the title of gentes sin razon—"men without reason"—and they accept the reproachful term as readily as it is given.

The Indians never deserve so well to be called "men without reason" as when they give themselves up to the celebration of some feast-day of the Church. The extravagance of a poor man on such occasions, especially when he frequents the pulqueria, or dram-shop, is marvelous. Money is borrowed in advance, to be returned in labor; debt thus becomes the bane of the Mexican peasantry. The debtors (mozos) make up a large part of the population, and a more hopeless slavery it is not possible to imagine. Another great source of this and other evils is the extravagant marriage-fee demanded by the priests. This is never less than fourteen dollars; and if this ceremony is not altogether dispensed with—as it is in a majority of cases—a young man begins his career as a mozo by borrowing money to defray the expenses of his wedding.

In love of wife and children Mexicans of every class are not excelled anywhere. If Diego or Juan is at work on one of the new roads, thither he transports his wife and his babies. He has a shelter for them somewhere among the cactus or mesquite and stunted palms, or lie burrows in a hillside or has a little thatch amid the brush, where, though not very comfortable according to our ideas, he has a home. Here the little brown children roll in the sun with the pigs, who have accompanied the family in their migration. The pony, if they have one, is tethered close by, and the inevitable burro, or donkey, goes hobbling about, as long-suffering as the Indian and with something like his history.

The ordinary homes of the common people are