AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF MEXICO. 303 



[Note. No more striking illustration of the popular " craze " for public office can be 

 found than in the circumstance that, although an appointment to the United States con- 

 sulate at Vera Cruz (salary in 1884, $3,000) is equivalent to investing in a lottery of 

 death, in which the chances to an unacclimated person for drawing a capital prize are 

 probably as great as one to seven or eight, no lack of applicants for the place is ever ex- 

 perienced. Thus, the consul whose appeal for an increase of salary is above noticed, was 

 appointed from Illinois, and resigned in 1881. His successor, appointed from Nebraska, 

 died of yellow fever a fortnight after arrival at his post ; and since then there have been 

 two appointments, one from Nebraska and one from New Jersey.] 



This, then, is what the writer has to report respecting the economic 

 condition and prospects of Mexico. His conclusions have not come to 

 him, as perhaps may be inferred or charged, mainly from a somewhat 

 extended but brief tour of observation ; for no one can be more con- 

 scious than he of how little one can know of a country who, ignorant 

 of the language, the customs, the political and social condition and 

 pursuits of its people, sees it simply and hurriedly as a traveler. But 

 the journey in question was, nevertheless, sufficiently extensive and 

 instructive to thoroughly satisfy at least as to two points : First, that 

 here was a country, bordering on the United States for a distance of 

 more than two thousand miles, which was almost as foreign to the 

 latter, in respect to race, climate, government, manners, and laws, as 

 though it belonged to another planet ; and, secondly, that the people 

 of the United States generally knew about as much of the domestic 

 concerns of this one of their nearest neighbors as they did about 

 those of the empire of China. The temptation to enter upon a field 

 of economic investigation so fresh and so little worked was too at- 

 tractive to be resisted ; and, accordingly, with the sole purpose of 

 desiring to know the truth about Mexico, and to form an opinion as 

 to what should be the future political and commercial relations be- 

 tween that country and the United States, the writer has made a 

 careful study of a large amount of information that he has found acces- 

 sible, both from public and private sources. And it is on the basis of 

 this study, and with the kindliest feeling for and the deepest interest 

 in Mexico, that he has written. In so doing, however, he claims 

 nothing of infallibility. He frankly confesses that in respect to some 

 things he may be mistaken ; and that others might draw entirely dif- 

 ferent conclusions from the same data.* But for the entire accuracy 



* One curious illustration of this point is to be found in the following extract from a 

 letter recently addressed to the Mexican " Financier " by a Mexican gentleman, in contra- 

 vention of the writer's opinions respecting the present industrial condition and prospective 

 development of Mexico. He says: "If you pass through the Academy of San Carlos, you 

 will see pictures executed by native Mexican artists in the highest style of art, comparing 

 most favorably with any production of the academies of design of Paris, Rome, Munich, 

 or elsewhere. Go with me, if you please, to a narrow lane in the small but picturesque 

 city of Cucrnavaca, and there in a small room, working with implements of his own make, 

 you will observe a native, whom you would perhaps class among the peons, carving a 

 crucifix in wood, so highly artistic, with the expression of suffering on our Saviour's face 

 so realistic, that any foreign sculptor of the highest renown would be proud to call it a 



