Page:Six Months In Mexico.pdf/172

170 spend the third and final night beneath the scaffolding. Dawn came, but it brought no hopeful man for the promised absolution. They found him hanging on the scaffolding dead. Some say the angels took him away because he had suffered sufficiently for his sins. Others say the devils hung him because he tried to escape the toil he had willingly accepted. But he was dead. His story was made known, and because of the strangeness of it, this street was named after him, and I never traversed it while in Mexico but that I felt sorrow for the poor insane wretch as he stood three nights beneath the scaffolding on Don Juan Manuel.

readers will probably be interested to know how custom rules that a parlor shall be furnished “in Spanish" as we quaintly say in Mexico. For the knowledge that all are of a different tongue makes a rather queer impression and it is quite common for foreigners to remark: “Oh, they can’t hear, they are Spanish. "We even get to think they cannot see and that people laugh and babies cry “in Spanish."

A parlor, or sala, is found in every private Mexican house, but until within the last two years there was not a hotel in the republic that had a parlor. Boarders entertained their friends in their bedrooms—and this is yet considered quite the proper thing to do. Some of the hotels now advertise as Americanos on the strength of having a little parlor. Calling or visiting is quite uncommon, as there is no society, and little sociability outside their home doors, yet occasionally relatives call o on one another; still I have been with cousins who accidentally met at church, and though they were the best of friends, living within a dozen squares of each other, they had not exchanged visits for three years; this is quite common. I know two sisters living within four squares of each other who have not been in each other’s house for a year. I hardly think the reason is a lack of sociability or hospitality, as, once within the massive walls of their casa, the Spanish courtesy is readily