Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/118

116 clean-swept streets and floors, the clean-washed garments, when one reflects that nine times out of ten the one suit, noonday and night, forms the entire stock of wearing apparel, and that cleaning it means the temporary retirement of the family, either publicly or privately. Judging from the number of primitive bathing and washing establishments we met by country brooks and city ditches, wherein father, mother, children, and clothes were all being cleaned together, I am inclined to think they prefer the public demonstration. And why should they not, if it be simpler and easier? Is it their dovelike innocence that is to be condemned, or our prudish wisdom?