Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 1.djvu/76

50 national fiction, upon which all parties are content to wink. The pay of both officers and troops is extremely uncertain; but the men are the greatest sufferers in this particular; certain practices being resorted to by their superiors that are not at all available with them. Among other ingenious devices, it is by no means uncommon for officers to insert the names of a number of fictitious soldiers in their muster-rolls, for the purpose of eking-out their own precarious pay by the aid of false accounts; their remuneration being regulated by the number of their troops.

Until within the last few years, education was wofully neglected in Mexico: it was estimated that not more than one in every fourteen of the inhabitants was able to read. But at the present time, besides the government normal school for the elementary education of soldiers in the army, there are establishments for the tuition of both boys and girls, in many of the parishes throughout the country. These schools are inspected and supported under the direction of the Ayuntamientos, or town-councils: the children are furnished with books, without charge, and they are instructed in the most essential requirements of