Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/269

 of this mint of Mexico, as there are others established in the large cities of the republic, the sum total of all the mints, so far as is known, up to the year 1883 is over $3,000,000,000.

The coinage only is shown here; millions have been exported of the ore; and an approximate of the whole amount will be attempted when we visit the mines. We may wander through these halls in a state of dazed uncertainty as to whether we are existing in the past or present, so firmly does this silver chain of dates and facts bind us, and lead us back to the first years of Spanish possession. Through centuries of change, and every variety of discord and warfare, the dies of the mint have gone on, stamping the likeness of successive rulers upon the product of the mines. Coins of the realm, of the empire, of the republic, at last the steady stream shows only an even flow of coins of the republic, the emblem of Liberty upon every one. Every peso is stamped with its weight in drams and grains; and good weight it is, every dollar weighing just one ounce; for these good Mexicans hold that an honest dollar is alone the product of an honest man.

Another relic of the past, savoring of hell and iniquity, though now devoted to use as a college of medicine, is the old Palace of the Inquisition, near the Plazuela of San Domingo. Long since abolished, the hideous face of the tribunal of the Inquisition peers at us only from the ashes of the dead and horrible past. Its last victim in Mexico, General José Morelos, was burned in November, 1815. For two hundred and fifty years, since 1571, it had exerted its baleful influence, but was crushed, with the last vestige of Spanish power, in 1821. The Plazuela is now occupied as a market in a small way, by poor people, and the odor of sizzling pork and tamales rises above the very place where heretics and apostates were once roasted and toasted to a crisp.

It is difficult to wander far from your door without encountering a hospital of some sort; which fact speaks well for the people. Since the suppression of the monastic establishments and the banishment of the sweet sisters of charity, the government has taken these hospitals under its charge By the