Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/83

Rh difficult to procure of those works which were impressed in Mexico. It is extremely curious and quaint, and written in both Mexican and Castilian. Molina was born in the year of the Columbian discovery, and was also the author of a Vocabulario. This Vocabulario, by the way, was the first dictionary printed in the New World, and is cited by Thomas in his History of Printing in America as a great literary curiosity. For a long time it was generally supposed that this was the first book printed in the New World.

The first printing press which found its way to Mexico was actually brought thither at the request of Archbishop Zumarraga, the wholesale destroyer of the native Aztec manuscripts so much bewailed by scholars. Thus "out of the eater came forth meat." Ever since then the printing press has been busy in Mexico.

Modern journals are numerous. The Mexican Herald, an admirably conducted paper, is published in English, and caters to the English-speaking people in the Republic. It is housed in a most palatial building and exerts enormous influence, representing as it does the capital and enterprise of the country. Among other English papers, the evening Daily Record —the only English evening paper in Mexico—has a high reputation.

The native Press has a splendid record of educative and enlightening labour behind it. Only some twenty years ago, people of the peon class who were able to read were the exception, but to-day even the most ragged of them evidenlty finds the daily paper a necessary adjunct to his well-being. The Press is in no wise "muzzled" in Mexico, and its influence with the general public is supreme. El Imparcial, the great Mexican daily, has a circulation approaching 100,000 copies; and its evening journal, El Mundo, is also widely patronised. El Popular, with its afternoon edition El Argos, is extremely "popular," as its name suggests, with the masses. La Patria is frankly anti-American, and the pen of its editor is not