Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/16

 with which they were associated; and forming themselves a part of the remarkable political drama upon which the curtain has so recently fallen in sadness and gloom.

Beside the Mexican beauties of greater or less celebrity—a beauty consisting chiefly of fine eyes and luxuriant hair, no rarity among Spanish-American belles—the dress-circle contained numerous fine women from Europe, some of noble birth, marchionesses, countesses, etc., and presenting a radiant contrast of light hair, blue eyes and delicate complexions to the morenas of native extraction. Altogether, that array of beauty offered a brilliant picture, especially if the Emperor and Empress happened to be present. Everybody was expected then to be in extreme full dress, and a connoisseur in toilet, lorgnette in hand, would find enough to occupy his attention. It was a sumptuous array of rich dresses, incredible jewelry, and gorgeous regimentals. The Imperial couple rarely sat out the opera, and on their departure with the favored two or three who had been honored with a place in their box the same marks of respect were shown by the audience. The writer, with the usual carelessness of his sex in such matters, on this occasion failed to note the details of Carlotta's dress, though seated at no great distance from the Imperial box. The general impression however, produced, was of the most exquisite taste—richness of material, blended with simplicity of ornaments—while the lady, the cynosure of all eyes, bore herself with the ease and dignity becoming her royal birth and exalted station. So did the charming Carlojta appear to two or three Americans whose republican origin, perhaps, constituted them impartial critics of the Empress of Mexico.

Like most large cities, Mexico presents the extremes of wealth and poverty. Beggary is reduced to a system. Incorrigible offenders are known to the police as having for years imposed upon the sympathies of strangers by drugging their own children (or those hired for the purpose) and passing them off for diseased or dying. Attempts were made under the Empire to stop this, but ineffectually. The lame, the blind, and the deformed are thrust in one's path, in every stage of disgusting loathsomeness, clamorous for charity. Deformed creatures too horrible to contemplate are carried in chairs and placed under one's window, until exorcised with a few pieces of copper money; and others crawl along the pavement, shod hands and feet with square blocks of wood to prevent their toilsome progress from wearing away the flesh. There are beggars of all degrees and kinds—church, secular, and society beggars, and those who have their expenses paid and hand over their earnings to their employers. In the dense throngs in the streets these helpless creatures form a feature memorable for their very hideousness.

Turning to the other extreme of society, the city of Mexico contains immense wealth, which is lavished in all the means of comfort and luxury known to civilized life. Houses, whose forbidding exterior of stone and plaster, with grated prison-like windows, give no idea of the grandeur within, are adorned with all that art and wealth can supply, brought from abroad at incredible expense. Costly and elegant furniture, libraries, pianos, paintings, and statuary, and all that goes to complete the appointments of a sumptuous mansion, are displayed oftener with reckless profusion than in conformity with good taste. The private equipages in the streets are a special means of exhibiting wealth. Many are richly ornamented with silver; mules are in general demand for carriages, though a fine span of English or American horses now and then dash along, the reins held by liveried coachmen, while behind sits the footman in all the splendor of red, green and yellow.

The principal drives are the Paseo de