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No traveler should leave the country without visiting the famous Hercules mill. The railroad-track runs close to it, and the distance by carriage from Querétaro is about two miles. The factory was begun in 1840 by Señor Rubio. The cost of building it, together with the ground, was $4,000,000. It is a sort of citadel. Inclosed by a high wall, provided with port-holes, occupying several acres, and giving employment to 1,400 operatives, it forms a manufacturing town of itself.

The Rubio family live here, and their apartments adjoin a beautiful garden, laid out with artificial ponds and statues. The buildings are of stone, and the machinery has been imported principally from England. Both steam and water power are used in the factory, and it has one of the largest overshot wheels in the world, being fifty feet in diameter. The operatives are all Mexicans. There are, however, half a dozen Europeans employed as foremen and superintendents. The force of hands is kept working both day and night, and an immense number of yards of unbleached cotton, called manta, is manufactured annually. Señores Rubio have a small “army" of thirty-eight soldiers, who are provided with muskets and howitzers. Thus far the owners have defended their property successfully against the insurgents during several revolutions. The proprietors say that there has been but one strike among the operatives during the last twenty-five years.

Don Cayetano Rubio is the present manager of the establishment. He went to Manchester, England, when a lad, and learned the trade of cotton-spinning. He is very polite to strangers, and sends a clerk to accompany them through the factory. The Hercules mill suggests much