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 528 treated with that courtesy and attention their exalted position merited.

A year later, in February, 1880, General Grant, ex-president of the United States, concluded his extended tour around the world by visiting Mexico. He was received, like the business men from Chicago, with the vivas of an enthusiastic people. Processions were formed in his honor, and he was lodged and fed at the cost of the municipality. His visit was without political significance, although certain seditious leaders of opinion in Mexico disseminated the foolish report that he desired to eventually establish himself as dictator in that country. That his motives were friendly towards Mexico was conclusively proven in the following year, when he returned to that country empowered by some New York capitalists, to secure a concession for a railroad, who encouraged by the success attending the construction of the Vera Cruz railway shortly commenced active operations which paved the way for other railway enterprises, the completion of which ultimately succeeded in raising the previous total of the government revenues from $18,000,000 to over $31,000,000 annually.

[A. D. 1880-81.] To the revenues at this time the ten per cent, tax on the National Lottery contributed $33,000, while that omnipresent nuisance, the stamp tax, yielded little less than $4,000,000 per annum. To tickets of every description, railway or theatre, the objectionable stamp was affixed, on each page of cash-book or ledger it confronted the reader, while a receipt was invalid unless the "sticker" was attached. The total of all the taxable property in the state now