Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/146

120 the priests, hierarchy, and secular clergy, from their flocks.

The bishops and superior clergy are as numerous as they were before the revolution. Besides an archbishop and nine bishops, there are nearly five thousand parish priests. There are ten cathedrals, with canons and other dignitaries innumerable; and more than a hundred and fifty convents, containing nearly two thousand monks—Dominicans, Augnstans, Carmelites, Franciscans, and Mercedarios. The priests and monks have the sole distribution of all monies bequeathed for pious and charitable purposes; and church property is still exempt, as it was before the revolution, from paying any tax or burden whatever to the State.

Some attempts have been made to infringe upon these possessions, on account of the relative poverty of the country, but the innovators have been quickly clamoured down; and though the priesthood is not composed of such well-born or educated persons as formerly, their sway is still unchecked, and their arrogance and rapacity are unbounded.

The various ways in which these ecclesiastics