AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 21 



who, producing nothing and consuming everything, virtually lived on 

 the superstitions and fears of their countrymen which they at the 

 same time did their best to create and perpetuate he no longer won- 

 ders that Mexico and her people are poor and degraded, but rather 

 that they are not poorer and more degraded than they are. 



What amount of property was owned by the Mexican Church and 

 clergy previous to its secularization is not certainly known (at least by 

 the public). It is agreed that they at one time held the titles to all 

 the best property of the republic, both in city and country ; and there 

 is said to have been an admission by the clerical authorities to the 

 ownership of eight hundred and sixty-one estates in the country, val- 

 ued at $71,000,000 ; and of twenty-two thousand lots of city property, 

 valued at 8113,000,000 ; making a total of $184,000,000. Other esti- 

 mates, more general in their character, are to the effect that the former 

 aggregate wealth of the Mexican Church can not have been less than 

 $300,000,000 ; and, according to Mr. Strother, it is not improbable 

 that even this large estimate falls short of the truth ; " inasmuch as it 

 is admitted that the Mexican ecclesiastical body well understood the 

 value of money as an element of power, and, as bankers and money- 

 lenders for the nation, possessed vast assets which could not be pub- 

 licly known or estimated." Notwithstanding also the great losses 

 which the Church had undoubtedly experienced prior to the accession 

 of Juarez in 1857, and his control of the state, the annual revenue of 

 the Mexican clergy at that time, from tithes, gifts, charities, and pa- 

 rochial dues, is believed to have been not less than $22,000,000, or 

 more than the entire aggregate revenues of the state derived from 

 all its customs and internal taxes. Some of the property that thus 

 came into the possession of the Government was quickly sold by it, 

 and at very low prices ; and, very curiously, was bought, in some nota- 

 ble instances, by other religious (Protestant) denominations, which, 

 previous to 1857, had not been allowed to obtain even so much as tol- 

 erance or a foothold in the country. Thus, the former spacious head- 

 quarters of the order of the Franciscans, with one of the most elegant 

 and beautifully proportioned chapels in the world, within its walls, and 

 fronting in part on the Calle de San Francisco, the most fashionable street 

 in the city of Mexico, was sold to Bishop Riley and a well-known philan- 

 thropist of New York, acting for the American Episcopal missions, 

 at an understood price of thirty-five thousand dollars, and is now 

 valued at over two hundred thousand dollars. In like manner the 

 American Baptist missionaries have gained an ownership or control, in 

 the city of Puebla, of the old Palace of the Inquisition ; and in the 

 city of Mexico, the former enormous Palace of the Inquisition, is now 

 a medical college ; while the Plaza de San Domingo, which adjoins 

 and fronts the Church of San Domingo, and where the auto-da-fe was 

 once held, is now used as a market-place. A former magnificent old 

 convent, to some extent reconstructed and repaired, also affords quar- 



