AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 163 



work laboriously, at Santa Fe, in the United States, for simple subsist- 

 ence ; and a subsistence, furthermore, inferior in quality and quantity 

 to the rations generally given to acknowledged paupers in most Ameri- 

 can poor-houses ; and yet no high-priced laborer in the United States 

 has any more fear of the industrial competition of the pauper laborers 

 of Santa Fe than he has of the competition of the paupers who are 

 the objects of charitable support in his own immediate locality. 



The largest, best-conducted, and most profitable of the cotton-fac- 

 tories of Mexico, and the largest manufacturing establishment in the 

 country, is the "Hercules" mill, located near Queretaro, 152 miles 

 from the capital. Taking a tramway, with comfortable cars of New 

 York (Stevenson's) construction, for a distance of about three miles 

 from the plaza, the visitor, on approaching, finds an establishment, 

 embracing several acres, entirely surrounded by a massive, high, and 

 thick wall, with gateways well adapted for defense and exclusion. On 

 entering, the objects which first arrest attention are an attractive 

 little park, with semi-tropical trees and shrubs ; handsome residences 

 for the owner and his family, and a stone armory or guard-house 

 with men in semi-miiitary costume lounging about containing a com- 

 plete military equipment for thirty-seven men, horse and foot Win- 

 chester rifles and two small pieces of artillery. "Without being too 

 inquisitive, the visitors are given to understand that all this military 

 preparation was formerly more necessary than at present ; but that 

 even now it was prudent for the officers or agents of the mill to have 

 an armed escort in making collections, contingent upon the sale of its 

 products, from the country dealers and shopkeepers. Back of the 

 guard-house were the mill-buildings proper, warehouses, stables, boiler- 

 house, -etc., all well arranged, of good stone construction, scrupulously 

 clean, and in apparently excellent order. 



The machinery equipment was 21,000 spindles and 700 looms ; its 

 product being a coarse, unbleached cotton fabric, adapted for the 

 staple clothing of the masses, and known as " manta." Both water- 

 and steam-power were used. In the case of the former, a small 

 stream, with a high fall, being utilized through an iron overshot-wheel, 

 forty-six and a half feet in diameter one of the largest ever con- 

 structed ; for the latter a fine "Corliss" engine from Providence, 

 Hhode Island. The spinning-frames and a part of the looms were 

 from Paterson, New Jersey. The remainder of the looms, the steam- 

 boilers, and the immense water-wheel, were of English workman- 

 ship. Wood, costing sixteen dollars per cord, was used for fuel ; 

 and the motive-power was in charge of a Yankee engineer, who had 

 been induced to leave the Brooklyn (New York) water-works, by a 

 salary about double what he had received there ; but who declared 

 that nothing would induce him to remain beyond the term (two years) 

 of his contract, which had nearly expired. The motives prompting to 

 this conclusion were suggested by observing, on visiting his quarters 



