Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/34

Rh the landowner to whose estate they were attached; and then, as they could not leave his employ until the debt had been discharged, they not only became serfs, but in many cases bequeathed their miserable condition to their children. Silent and sad, apparently frail but capable of great exertion, trotting barefooted to and from their huts with their coarse black hair ﬂowing loosely or gathered in two straight braids, watching everything with eyes that seemed ﬁxed on the ground, loving ﬂowers much,but a dagger more, fond of melody but preferring songs that were melancholy and wild, always tricky, obstinate, indolent, peevish and careless yet affectionate and hospitable, often extracting a dry humor from life as their donkeys got nourishment from. the thistles, they went their wretched ways as patient and inscrutable as the sepoy or the cat 7 infants with devils inside.

At the head of the social world stood a titled, aristocracy maintained by the custom of primogeniture. But as the nobles were few in number, and for a long time had possessed no feudal authority, their inﬂuence at the period we are studying depended mainly upon their wealth. Next these came aristocrats of other kinds. Some claimed the honor of tracing their pedigree to the conquerors, and with it enjoyed great possessions; and others had the riches Without the descent The two most approved sources of wealth were the ownership of immense estates and the ownership of productive mines. On a lower level stood certain of the rich merchants, and lower still, if they were lucky enough to gain social recognition, a few of those who acquired property by dealing in the malodorous government contracts. To these must be added in general the high dignitaries of the church, the foreign ministers, the principal generals and statesmen and the most notable doctors and lawyers. Such was the upper class.

A sort of middle class included the lesser professional men, prelates, military officers and civil ofﬁcials, journalists, a few teachers, business men of importance and some fairly Well-to-do citizens without occupations. Of small farms and small mines there were practically none, and the inferior clergy signified little. The smaller importing and Wholesale merchants came to be almost entirely British, French and German soon after independence was achieved, and the retailers were