Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/181

Rh silver, the substitute for bells; and on Good Friday they disport Judases of all shapes and sizes, filled with gunpowder, which at the proper moment explodes. On Palm Sunday they fill the churches in their indescribable variety of gay and striking costumes, bearing in their hands tall, yellow palms, making a much more impressive sight, and closer to the narrative of the Gospels, than our colder climate enables us to have. Capt. G. F. Lyon, who went from England to Mexico in 1828, examined closely the labor, especially the mining, of the country. Herdsmen received five dollars per month, and agricultural laborers seven pence per day. Wages have slightly risen since then, but, unfortunately, so have the prices of food and clothing. "Mexico as it was and is," by Brantz Mayer, was written in 1841-42 by the Secretary of the American Legation. He sought especially to collect data from authentic sources upon commerce, agriculture, manufactures, coinage, mines, church and general government. He is obliged to add: "In many instances I have only been enabled to present estimates." Two recent writers, Thomas A. Janvier and David