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482 different parts getting scattered about and lost. For convenience they travel two by two, a metallic connection enabling them to keep step with military precision.

I saw about twenty of them at work one day at the mole, carrying heavy beams of Spanish cedar—the wood from which we make Havana cigar boxes in the United States—up into the city. They were guarded by a squad of soldiers, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, who kept them to their work in lively style, their chains clinking musically, all the time. By accident the sharp edge of a heavy beam came down on the sandaled foot of one of the operatives, when his great toe-nail opened like an alligator's jaws, and snapped viciously at the wood. The owner of the toe, picked up his end of the beam, and went off with his three companions on a dog-trot, seeming oblivious of the fact that there had been any quarrel going on.

Vera Cruz is the most important sea-port of the Republic of Mexico, and it may be interesting to the outside world to know how its population is made up, and what is the mental and moral standing of the inhabitants. The following figures I take from the official census returns made in April, 1869. The returns copied are for the Municipality of Vera Cruz, consisting of the old city within the walls and the district in the immediate vicinity, comprising almost as much territory as is included in the Metropolitan District of New York. The population of the municipality is as follows: