Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/408

394 that they had artillery as well. The lance is no longer used, and the cavalry, for desultory warfare at least appears to be fully equal to our own.

The press of Mexico is yet in its infancy, and falls far short of holding its proper position in the community. Though nominally free, it is hampered in many ways. The name of the "responsible editor" and proprietor must be given in every edition. The Government of the Republic and the different State governments have subsidized organs, which publish the laws, speak authoritatively, and reflect the views only of the party, at the moment, in power. This discourages enterprise, and intensifies and embitters party feeling; the few opposition papers being driven to pursue the most violent course, as the only means of living at all. Such a thing as a newspaper sustained wholly, or to any considerable extent, by its advertising patronage is unknown. The entire circulation of all the daily and weekly papers in the Republic combined, is not equal to that of a single one of the second class dailies of New York.

In the City of Mexico there is something like progress displayed by the press, but it is very little, after all. The dailies are specially deficient in the matter of local news; an event of startling importance—as it would be regarded in the United States—occurring within two blocks of the office, may find its way into a paper within a week, or it may never be alluded to. The political editorials are often very bitter and abusive, but generally well-written and forcible, and the literary department is usually good. Each paper publishes a serial novel in a division at the bottom, so arranged that it can be cut off and bound in pages into a volume