160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



"Wao-es, on the average, in Mexico, are from one half to two thirds 

 less than what are paid in similar occupations in the United States ; 

 and yet in comparison with the United States the price of almost 

 all products of industry in Mexico is high. Thus, in the city of Mexi- 

 co, where wages rule higher than in almost any part of the republic, 

 the average daily wages in some of the principal occupations during 

 the year 1885 were as follow : Laborers, porters, etc., forty to fifty 

 cents ; masons, seventy-five cents to one dollar ; assistants, thirty- 

 seven and a half to fifty cents ; teamsters, fifty cents ; blacksmiths, 

 one dollar and fifty cents ; printers, one dollar ; saddle and harness 

 makers, sixty-two cents ; tailors, seventy-five cents ; painters, eighty- 

 seven and a half cents ; weavers in the cotton-mills at Tepic and San- 

 tiago, four dollars per week of seventy-two hours ; spinners, three dol- 

 lars ditto. In the cotton-mills in the vicinity of the city of Mexico a 

 much higher average is reported. The operatives in the woolen manu- 

 factories of Mexico are in receipt of higher average wages than those 

 in almost any other domestic industry ; and Mexican woolen fabrics 

 are comparatively cheap and of good style and quality. Underground 

 miners, at the great mines of Zacatecas and Guanajuato, receive an 

 average of nine dollars per week of sixty hours ; underground labor- 

 ers, three dollars ditto ; agricultural laborers in the district of San 

 Bias average nineteen cents per day, with an allowance of sixteen 

 pounds of corn per week. On a hacienda near Regla, in Central Mex- 

 ico, comprising an area some eighteen miles in length by twelve in 

 its greatest breadth and including an artificial lake two miles in its 

 principal dimensions, the wages paid in 1883 were six cents a day 

 for boys and thirty-seven cents for the best class of adults. In other 

 districts the wages of agriculturists are reported as from eight to ten 

 dollars per month, with rations. 



The following are the retail prices of some of the principal articles 

 of domestic consumption in Mexico : Fresh beef, twelve to eighteen 

 cents per pound ; lard, twenty to twenty-five cents ; coffee, twenty- 

 five cents ; sugar, unrefined, twelve to twenty cents ; table-salt, six 

 cents ; potatoes (city of Mexico), twenty-five cents per dozen ; flour, 

 ten to twelve cents per pound ; corn-meal, not usually in the market, 

 unless imported ; candles, thirty to fifty cents ; unbleached cottons, 

 ten to fifteen cents per yard ; calicoes, fifteen to twenty cents per 

 yard. Utensils of tin and copper are fifty per cent dearer than in 

 the United States ; while the retail prices of most articles of foreign 

 hardware (and none other are used) are double, treble, and even four 

 times as much as in the localities whence they are imported. " Be- 

 tween the extremes, a modest and economical lady's wardrobe will 

 cost, at the city of Mexico, about fifty per cent more than the same 

 style in the United States. This, however, is modified by the climate, 

 which requires no change of fashions to suit the seasons, as the same 

 outfit is equally appropriate for every month in the year." (Str other.) 



