Lewis Spence

“ But in justice to the Mexicans, perhaps I should state that I have as much contempt for the Briton who goes out to slay wantonly "the beasts of warren and chase," as I have for the Mexican who sits in sun or shade to witness a bull-fight. Let us remember when we denounce the brutalities of other peoples the proverb that has arisen regarding ourselves: "With the Englishman it is always—'What can I kill?' "And can barbarity go further than the slaughter of hand-fed deer or the shooting of half-domesticated ducks that takes place in the Scottish Highlands every season? ”

“ And though from out this hotbed of misgovernment, Diaz turned a complacent face on the outside world, remaining through it all the peacemaker, the kindly ruler who had taken in hand the governing of an ungrateful people, as his clever propagandists took care to make out, yet from the Mexicans, suffering under his yoke, the mask could scarcely serve to conceal his real character. Having once alienated the sympathies of the population, he had no choice but to govern by military and repressive methods. As an autocrat, he must use the great weapon of autocracy— force. ”

“ Those who have studied the history of Mexico know that certain of the races who flourished within its borders in the aboriginal period were cruel and bloodthirsty, and cherished a sanguinary faith in which human sacrifice and ceremonial cannibalism were the outstanding characteristics. Have these inherent brutalities only slumbered since the Conquest? In some measure, it is probably only too true that they have. But the critic of the Mexican people should strive to remember that at such a crisis the better elements in a population become almost completely overpowered and voiceless. ”

“ Men living in very humble circumstances, strenuously busy for sheer love of their art, gaining no official laurels, their works and very names unknown save to a small band of shrewd people—it is from such that great work usually comes: it is mainly works wrought thus which emerge with honour from the great sifting carried on by Time, arch-arbiter in all aesthetic matters. And no doubt there are many fine artists, working in this quiet fashion in Mexico to-day, responding year by year, to their country's almost unique incentive to art. ”

“ A smart Yankee once asked a Mexican haciendado, "How is a Mexican farm run?" and before the rather astonished son of the soil could reply to the question, another Gringo replied: "Sir, Mexican farms ain't run; they are walked." There is, indeed, no running about the business, or, if there is any, they run themselves. In places, one encounters the queerest mixture of the modern and the prehistoric. On one hand can be seen the most up-to-date American agricultural machinery and, on the other, grain winnowed by being tossed into the air or trodden under foot by mules. ”

“ It is inspiring to think that the new Provisional Government of Mexico is honestly doing its best to improve the conditions of life of these men, for it was undoubtedly the system of peonage—call it slavery, if you like—which caused the brooding sense of wrong which precipitated the Revolution. It is no excuse to argue that labour is cheap in Mexico because of the poverty of the land. The land is not poor, neither are the haciendados. One cannot support life in Paris on an impoverished estate. ”

“ MEXICO OF TO-MORROW
It is fashionable in some quarters, when the subject of the future of Latin-America is discussed, to adopt an air of profound pessimism. It is surprising to encounter men of experience, who, in dealing with such questions, adopt the attitude that progress among certain races is impossible, and that to expect advance—social, political, or commercial—in regard to them is to expect the incredible. Yet the lessons of race-history do not teach us such counsels of despair. ”

“ But the best in Mexico does not countenance brutality in sport any more than the thinking portion of Britons countenance prize-fighting or ratting.
The average Mexican is more a gamester than a sportsman. Sport and the sporting spirit, as we know it, is almost altogether lacking in Mexico, and that fine and generous spirit of chivalry which informs those manly British games of ours. But that is not to say that the Mexican is wanting in pluck. A pluckier man, a greater dare-devil, than the average young Mexican does not breathe. He cannot abide the idea of defeat ”

“ As has happened in other countries, Mexican journalism has been powerfully affected by the spirit of the times. The once dignified and rather sombre productions which glided rather than fell from the printing-presses of Mexico city have given way to newspapers which in tone reflect the "new" American spirit of journalism, its "human" note, its rather gross personalities, its meretricious smartness, its tendency towards the flippant and frivolous. ”

“ It is impossible at the present time to verify or deny such a statement, but it is possible to deny other assertions that Mexican education as a whole is being starved at the present time. As has been said before, the educational instinct is strong within the Mexican breast, and to attempt to brand this people as retrograde in letters or erudition is merely absurd. Indeed, the average Mexican of the better class has a much higher appreciation of all the things that really matter and that tend to make life beautiful than the commercial-minded American can ever attain to. ”

“ There is a strange belief among the Aztecs that, as the country once belonged to them, they have a perfect right to all within its borders. Thus no one can draw from them admission that they have stolen anything. Racial feeling is strong among these poor people, and rightly so. They are proud in their own way of the great past of their race; and if the Spanish element in the country contemns them and speaks slightingly of them as naturales and gentes sin razon, is it to be marvelled at that the Indians for their part hate and despise the descendants of their Castilian conquerors? ”

“ The democracy which, under his predecessor Benito Juarez, had bidden fair to come into its own, was crushed back into slavery, and progress in every branch of civilisation delayed in consequence. Small wonder, then, that the people, reluctant when he first assumed authority over them, found his rule ever more irksome, and hated their yoke of oppression with a hatred ever more sincere and justifiable! After the death of Juarez, Diaz succeeded in establishing himself in the capital. ”

“ But beggars, the maimed, the halt, and the blind still swarm in the cities and make their appeal at every street corner. These wretches seem to be regarded by the comfortable classes as less than human, and the gulf between them is so wide, that in some Mexican towns the central plaza has two paved footpaths—the inner for the upper classes and the outer for the native people! ”

“ Religious education is wisely banned from the schools of Mexico, for the terror of priestly interference and domination has burned itself so deeply into Mexican memory that there is no desire to encourage a recurrence of these evils. In the place of religion there is instruction in moral precepts and civic ethics. Stress is laid on the virtues of temperance—instruction that is sadly necessary in Mexico, where the ravages of the national beverage may be witnessed on every hand—and the children are taught to be good citizens and good Mexicans. ”

“ He found Mexico a desert of decay, a poorer and more piteous Spain. He raised her to the ostensible position of the most flourishing and important of the Spanish-American nations.
The career of Porfirio Diaz appears to point an analogy with that of a still greater figure in Mexican history—Hernan Cortés. In the two men we seem to discover the same contempt for obstacles to be overcome, the same absolute indifference to criticism; the same large, almost universal grasp of affairs and ability to discover and utilise the men required for certain definite tasks. ”

“ The great mass of the people regarded their faith as ritual which must be observed if insatiable gods were to be sufficiently nourished to enable them through magical process to send a sufficiency of food-stuffs; and so long as the new Christian deities undertook to yield maize, chian pinolli, and cotton, a change of pantheon mattered little to them. This is not to say that all parts of the Mexican empire yielded to the Cross as patiently and speedily as did the Aztecs. They did not. From their revolt sprang the dreadful and picturesque secret religion of Nagualism. ”

“ If Mexican rubber is grown under proper supervision, it is as good as any other variety; but how many Mexican rubber companies are paying dividends? The ridiculous boom some years ago definitely injured the cause of rubber in Mexico, as it did elsewhere. Let the prospective investor bear in mind that the price of land suitable for the growing of rubber is invariably high, and when he reads ninety-nine out of a hundred prospectuses his common sense will do the rest; also let him beware of rubber companies whose headquarters are in the United States. ”

“ Enough has been said to exhibit the Mexican mythology as a religious system which had advanced to a stage typical of a people whose chief business in life was the tilling of the earth. It does not exhibit those figures of a suaver cultus, such as that of Greece, where, side by side with deities of the soil, other gods had arisen who symbolised higher national ideals in love and art, such as Aphrodite or Apollo. Although Mexico had its goddess of Sexual Indulgence and its craft gods, it is very questionable whether the latter would ever have evolved into higher types. ”

“ The circus is much more popular in Mexico than the theatre. Its glitter and its horsemanship an art so dear to the Mexican of all grades—naturally attract the people.
It is, indeed, regrettable that this time-honoured form of amusement so suitable to children (and their parents) should have been practically abandoned in this country. Mexico can support several circus troupes, all of which flourish exceedingly. There is a mystery about the circus, a fascination tinged with orange and sawdust, to which no mere theatre can ever hope to attain ”

“ It is easy to understand that when vengeance becomes the main object of a people, the higher elements of their national faith become neglected, and those which they believe will assist them against the hated oppressor occupy their attention more fully. So Nagualism, or the magical part of the Mexican religion, flourished apace, in contradistinction to its more exalted tenets, becoming ever more firmly established as time advanced. ”

“ But the country is abhorred by your Mexican cockney as dearly as it is loved by his London prototype. If a rural pilgrimage becomes necessary, it is regarded as nothing short of a disaster, and condolences crowd in upon the unfortunate who must perforce tempt the rigours of such an expedition. It must be remembered, of course, that a sharp line of demarcation exists between city and country life in the Republic. The rural population is rural indeed, and is in no manner sophisticated as with ourselves. ”

“ It is quite a mistake to regard the Mexicans or other Latin-American peoples as resembling our colonists in frankness and indiscriminate hospitality. The Mexican is not at all casual. His code of etiquette dates from Spanish colonial days, and is thus even more rigorous than that of modern Spain itself. But once his confidence is gained, there are few more hospitable than he or more ready to extend full domestic intimacy to the properly accredited stranger within his gates. ”

“ He is idealistic to a degree, and possesses a keen sense of the aesthetic and beautiful in all its manifestations. It is not his Spanish origin alone which endows him with the rich gift of the seeing eye, for the despised Indian, whose blood flows in the veins of the noblest Mexican families, is extraordinarily talented in this respect, having a quick and appreciative sense for colour and form, and a quite distinguished musical ability. ”

“ Roughness and asperity are conspicuous by their absence in the relationships of everyday life. No matter into what grade of society one may penetrate, he will find himself the object of the most respectful, nay, even solicitous, politeness. This courtesy is the natural endowment of the race. The peon, scion of the grave and punctilious Aztec folk, is not to be outdone even by the descendant of the proud yet courtly Castilian. ”