MEXICO TO-DAY.* SINCE the publication of Madame Calderon de la
Barca's life-like sketches of Mexico, forty years ago, no work has appeared which gives such vivid pictures, combined with so much solid information as to the resources of the country, as are to be found in Mr. Brocklehurst's "Mexico To-day." It is, of course, impossible that in a visit extending only over seven months be could acquire so thorough an insight into the habits and customs of the people, into their ways of thinking and acting, and into their domestic and every-day life, as was attained during a residence of two years by the observant and accomplished Scotch wife of the first Spanish Minister to the Republic ; yet the author has succeeded not only in reproducing, for the benefit of those who have not been there, those impres- sions which the aspect of a country comparatively so little known must make on every traveller, but he has also done good service, both to his own countrymen and to his late hosts, by calling attention to the magnificent capabilities and the rapidly develOping resources of a country which can exhibit within the radius, of a few miles every production, whether of the temperate or of the torrid zone.
• Mexico Today: a Country with a Great Future ; nnd a Slanne at the Prehistoric Emmet., and Antiquities of the Montezuma,. By Thomas Truett Brooklehnrst, with Coloured Plates and Illustrations from Sketches by the Author. London : John Murray. It is interesting to compare these two pictures, taken at an interval of forty years, and to note the differences which the increased facilities of communication have made between them. When Madame Calderon de la Barca wrote, Mexico was perhaps the most isolated of the civilised countries of the world; its in- tercourse with the world outside may be said, indeed, to have been then restricted to the single port of Vera Cruz; harbour it had none, nor even land communication with its neighbours north and south, for its frontiers, both with Guatemala and with the United States, were undefined, and infested by hostile Indians, who practically intercepted and prevented all commerce ; the Panama Railway had not been made, gold had not been dis- covered in California (which then formed part of Mexico), Japan was still closed to foreigners, so there was little or no trade with the Pacific ports. The capital lay at a distance of over 250 miles from Vera Cruz, which distance took passengers three days' hard travelling in a diligence to accomplish ; and merchandise was, under favourable circumstances, a fortnight on the road, and during the rainy season, i.e., nearly half the year, usually occupied about six weeks. The communication with Europe was restricted to one packet a month, and even that was occasionally unable to land her letters for some days, when the "Norte" blew straight into the open road- stead of Vera Cruz. The internal communications were hardly better ; even between the capital and the coast, the roads which had been made by the Spaniards in the old colonial days had been allowed to fall into such a state of dis- repair, that the diligences as frequently went across the open fields as along what had once been a well-paved charissee ; while the passengers, who always went well armed, were not unfrequently stopped and plundered. even of their clothes by a few half-armed robbers, whom it was not considered etiquette to resist. At one time the diligence was regularly stopped at a point near Orizaba, and black mail was levied by a band which con- sisted of a woman armed with a blunderbuss and her boy with a stick; and it was a common joke in the city of Mexico that the passengers of the incoming diligence were unwilling to alight in the crowded courtyard of the Iturbide Hotel, because the robbers had left them nothing but the latest intelligence in the form of newspapers to dispose as gracefully as they could. about their persons. This state of isolation was maintained for twenty years—up to the time of the French intervention— indeed, it was not until after the French had, on the termina- tion of the Civil War in the United States, received notice to quit from Mr. Seward, and had in consequence deserted Maxi- milian and left the country, that the first railway, that between the city of Mexico and Vera Cruz, was completed. At the present moment there are over a thousand miles of railway open, and Mr. Brocklehurst states that in less than two years travellers will be able "to board the train at New York, and reach the halls of the Moutezumas within five days."
Twenty years ago, there was not such a thing as a bank-note in the country ; the currency was entirely specie, consisting mainly of the well-known silver dollar, which circulates all over the coasts of China and Japan, and of a small amount of the old gold " onzas,"—handsome, broad pieces, worth $16 each. It was a curious sight at the gambling-tables and cockpits at the annual fair of San Angel to see the piles of these ounces which changed hands on the turn of a card or the thrust of a spur ; and it was no easy matter to pay a debt of any large amount, when even in gold a sum of $5,000 was as heavy as you would care to carry for any distance. Mr. Brocklehurst found bank-notes of two banks in the capital in common use, and the Government were about to issue nickel coin, to relieve the scarcity of small change.
Another point in which very great progress has been made is that of religious toleration. it is not too much to say that until 1860, nearly half of the city of Mexico and of Puebla and other large towns, as well as a very large proportion of the richest " haciendas " (or farms) in the country, belonged to some religions corporation or other. The power of the Church was broken by the nationalisation of ecclesiastical property by Juarez and the Liberal party in that year, a measure which the return to power of the Church party under Miramon and Almonte shortly after was unable to repeal It was under the auspices of this latter party that the unfortunate Maximilian was summoned from Miramar ; but, at heart a Liberal, he soon found himself out of sympathy with his nominal sup- porters, while at the same time, chiefly owing to the double- dealing of Marshal Bazaine, he was unable to attract to his standard that Liberal element by whose support he would have gladly ruled. He thus fell tetween two stools; he had alienated the Clericals, without attaching to himself the Liberals, and when the French withdrew he had no following of his own to fall back upon. By the Constitutional Edict issued by Maximilian, free- dom of worship and toleration of all religions were proclaimed as the law of the land, though practically, from lack of sufficient Protestants or other denominationalists to form a congregation, these principles were not put to the test. Maximilian, however, evinced his readiness to carry them out in practice, by granting a disused convent in Mexico to the Freemasons as their head- quarters, by whom it was used as such without provoking any opposition or complaint, though, perhaps, this may be due to the comparative obscurity in which they worked. In one corner of the country the presence of a Protestant clergy- man must certainly be welcome. There has for many years existed a considerable English colony in the mining dis- trict of Real del Monte, chiefly Cornishmen, many of whom have their wives and families with them ; they were warmly at- tached, to their Protestant faith, and sufficient in number even twenty years ago to compose a congregation of seventy or eighty, to whom the English " Administrador," or Resident Manager, of the Company used to read service in his own house on Sunday morning. This gentleman, however, hardly felt himself equal to celebrating the Marriage Service. which was occasionally demanded in the community. The Mexican priests would not bless the union of heretics, and there was no Protestant clergyman within a thousand miles. What was to be done P On one of these occasions it chanced that the captain of an English ship was on a visit to the place, and he was persuaded by several anxious couples into stretching his authority, which admittedly on board his own ship extended to the exercise of certain clerical functions in the absence of a chaplain, so far as to perform the wedding service for his own countrymen at an elevation of 8,000 feet above the sea in the interior of Mexico. The matter was in course of time reported home by her Majesty's Minister, and under the circumstances it was considered right to condone this assumption of the bind- ing power, and a special Act of Parliament was passed to legi- timatise the issue of the marriages which had been thus in perfect good-faith, if somewhat irregularly celebrated. Such a necessity no longer exists, for if there be not a clergyman resi- dent at Real del Monte, the English miners there are, at any rate, within reach of the capital, where Mr. Brocklehurst found four different Protestant congregations, under their respective pastors, who had developed the usual ecclesiastical prejudices and animosities, thereby, as he points out, affording to the Catholic priests an opportunity of cautioning their flocks against joining a body which was so divided against itself. He paid special attention to the work and operation of Missions, in the course of a journey round the world, and came to the con- clusion that in many instances positive harm was being done, and that the money would be better •spent in our crowded cities at home.
In two respects Mr. Brocklehurst would appear to have been led away by what he heard and saw into adopting too roseate a view of the condition of Mexico, namely, as to its financial position and the stability of its political institutions. He avers that the old habit of resorting to a " pronunciamiento " is at an end, owing to the influence of the iron road and telegraph. Con- sidering that the present President, Gonzalez, came into power little more than two years ago in consequence of a revolution which overthrew his predecessor, Porfirio Diaz, this seems a somewhat hazardous assertion; and the author's incidental men- tion of the fact that on starting from Vera Cruz it was neces- sary for the rear carriage of the train to be occupied by an officer and fifty men as a guard against robbers, is a curious commentary on the assumption that the railroad has done away with the old state of things. With regard to her finances, Mr. Brocklehurst maintains that Mexico, so far from being, as is generally supposed, a hopeless bankrupt, "has the resources to even increase her Debt and pay every penny of it ;" and yet on the same page he admits that she has repudiated her Debt to France, and has not paid that due to England. Do not these statements, taken together, make her out to be something very like a fraudulent bankrupt ? He is mistaken in saying that since the recall of Mr. Ashton Forbes, in Decem- ber, 1861, we have never renewed diplomatic relations, the fact being that Mr. Ashton Forbes never represented Great Britain in Mexico at all. Sir Charles Wyke resided there as her Majesty's Minister till December, 1861, when he and General Prim withdrew from the tripartite convention with the French, on the latter making it manifest that they intended to interfere in the internal affairs of the country ; and, further, on the establishment of the Empire, Mr. Scarlett was accredited to Maximilian, and our Legation was not withdrawn until after the execution of the Emperor, in June, 1867. Mr. Brocklehurst deplores the absence of any British Representative, and assures us, on the faith of the Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs, that the latter's Government have in no way repudiated their debts to England, but have simply been unable to meet them. Surely, if Mexico desires to renew relations, the first advances should come from her, and should be accompanied by a frank statement of what she intends to do towards fulfilling obliga- tions contracted long anterior to the French intervention, and recognised by successive Governments of the Republic. Two- thirds of the foreign trade of Mexico are with the United States ; the average of imports of British produce into Mexico during the ten years 1871-80 is under a million, while that of exports to Great Britain is but little over half that sum, so there cannot on commercial grounds be any very pressing necessity for renewing British representation in that country.
Space fails to do more than give a word of praise to the excel- lent manner in which the book is got up; the illustrations of scenery are, most of them, faithful representations, though in some, notably in the frontispiece, the outlines of the mountains, and in Plate xxii., the angle of the Pyramids of Teotihuacan, have been mach exaggerated. The plates of Mexican antiquities. are especially valuable, as they have never been figured before in any popular work, and most of them have never been figured at all. It is curious, by the way, that the author should not. have remarked that the so-called Greek fret is a very common ornament on the clay whorls and other articles of pottery ; and he seems to be unaware of the existence of the Aztec obsidian mines, deep and very narrow shafts in the moun- tains near Real del Monte. A little more care in the spelling of Spanish words would have been desirable; " zarepa," for "serape ;" "machete," for " machete ;" and "Plaza Mayo," for " Mayor," are all errors in words of every-day use that niight have been avoided ; and no book is complete without an index. Still, these are slight defects in a work which cannot fail to give both pleasure and information to any reader who does not know the country ; while to one who does, it recalls half-forgotten memories, and induces a longing to visit again one of the most attractive regions and the finest climate on the face of God's earth.
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