Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/383

Rh if I were a young American, unmarried, and "fancy free," I would prefer the wider field of enterprise open to me in the United States, to the narrower field in Mexico; but if I had been born in Mexico, I would marry among my own people, settle down, and labor with all my heart and soul for the regeneration of my country. Mexico is a country well worthy the love and self-sacrifice of all her sons.

The children in Mexico strike you with surprise and admiration. You see no idle, vicious, saucy boys running around on the streets, annoying decent people by their vile language and rude behavior. All the boys you see have earnest faces, and walk with a sedate and grave demeanor like grown up men. I never saw a badly behaved child in Mexico. In the family circle the people are models for the world. The young always treat the old with the deepest respect, and the affection displayed by parents for their children and children for their parents, is most admirable. The daughter of a good family in Mexico, though grown to womanhood, will kiss the hand of her father when she meets him on the street, and always kisses her parents, brothers, and sisters at morning and evening, and many times during the day, with the greatest warmth, and earnestness. When the children marry, they usually remain under the parental roof as long as the parents live, and the parents control the house.

The people of Mexico are, to-day, very poor. Among the very lowest classes there is less suffering than among the class who have once been rich, and are now laboring to keep up appearances after all actual prosperity has gone, and their available resources are exhausted. Beggars lounge around everywhere, and accost you