412 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dependence till eight years ago, our high- 

 ways have been somewhat insecure, espe- 

 cially those more distant from centers of 

 population, but never to the extent asserted 

 by Mr. Wells ; and at present I am sure 

 that, in this respect, we are no worse than 

 the United States or any other of the na- 

 tions called civilized. 



It has been always the practice of Ameri- 

 cans to despise and abuse Mexicans (of 

 course there are many honorable exceptions 

 to the rule) whenever it was possible to do 

 so, as I had occasion to notice during nearly 

 two years that I lived in San Francisco, Cali- 

 fornia. This, I believe, is a mere question 

 of race, but it none the less awakens a feel- 

 ing of antagonism, at least among the un- 

 educated classes of Mexicans. The ex-min- 

 ister to Mexico, Mr. John W. Foster, was 

 not an exception to the rule of what I have 

 said, when he wrote to the merchants of 

 Chicago the exaggerated report to which 

 Mr. Wells alludes. When that memorable 

 piece of Mr. Foster's literary ability was 

 published in the journals of Chicago, ex- 

 deputy Martinez Negrete, of this country, 

 had just arrived in that city, on his return 

 from the Exhibition at Paris in 1878. As 

 soon as he read the unfair communication 

 of Mr. Foster, he made a very patriotic and 

 energetic reply, and published it in one of 

 the evening journals of that city, waiting 

 there for results several days. The fact 

 that there was never an argument adduced 

 against our deputy's article, proved conclu- 

 sively the lack of truth in Mr. Foster's 

 malicious report. Senor Martinez Negrete, 

 in showing at that time that there were 

 robberies in the United States as well as 

 in Mexico or other countries, amoDg other 

 things pointed out the recent and scandal- 

 ous fact of the stealing of A. T. Stewart's 

 corpse from the tomb, an event the par- 

 allel of which never has occurred in 

 Mexico. 



Now let us hear Mr. Wells discourse 

 about the ancient civilization of Mexico : 

 " The general idea is, that the people whom 

 the Spaniards found in Mexico had attained 

 to a degree of civilization that raised them 

 far above the level of the average Indians 

 of North America, more especially in all 

 that pertained to government, architecture, 

 agriculture, manufactures, and the useful 

 arts, and the production and accumulation 

 of property. For all this there is certainly 



but very little foundation, and the fasci- 

 nating narrations of Prescott, which have 

 done so much to make what is popularly 

 considered ' Mexican history,' as well as the 

 Spanish chronicles from which Prescott drew 

 his so-called historic data, are, in the opin- 

 ion of the writer, and with the exception of 

 the military records of the Spaniards, little 

 other than the merest romance, not much 

 more worthy, in fact, of respect and cre- 

 dence, than the equally fascinating stories 

 of 'Sindbad the Sailor.'" Who could re- 

 frain from laughing at such a pompous and 

 presumptuous way of dealing -with historic 

 matters ? Perhaps Mr. Wells blames Mr. 

 Prescott for not having drawn the materi- 

 als for the " History of the Conquest of 

 Mexico " from the annals of China or Ja- 

 pan. . . . But the most curious thing about 

 Mr. Wells is the boldness with which he 

 rejects the Spanish chronicles and the writ- 

 ings of Prescott without offering any better 

 authority to upset them ; he may be a man 

 of unlimited knowledge, but we refuse to 

 adopt him as the standard authority in the 

 " History of Mexico," for which refusal, I 

 am sure, the sensible world will justify us. 

 If Mr. Wells has not learned anything about 

 the advanced civilization of the ancient em- 

 pires and kingdoms of Mexico, we advise him 

 to read the famous historic writings of Cla- 

 vijero, Las Casas, Alaman, Orozcoy Berra, 

 and others, and the no less important ar- 

 chaeological and philological works of Cha- 

 vero and Pimentel. There he will find am- 

 ple evidence of the Indian civilization which 

 he denies now without proof. The facts nar- 

 rated by the writers cited have been widely 

 illustrated and proved by the majestic and 

 highly interesting ruins of Uxmal, Mitla, 

 Magdalena, and several other places, in the 

 States of Yucatan, Oaxaca, Pueblo, and So- 

 nora, which have attracted so much atten- 

 tion and study from national and foreign 

 archaeologists. 



From all that I have said it is clearly 

 seen that Mr. Wells has been very hasty 

 and unscrupulous in his article with which 

 he tried to take the public by surprise ; but 

 I can assure the readers of the <k Monthly " 

 that, if there is any economy in Mr. Wells's 

 " Economic Study of Mexico," it is to be 

 found in the amount of truth comprised in 

 the narrations which it contains. 



P. F. Mange. 

 Alamos, Sonoba, Mexico, May 5, 13S6. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



SCIENCE AND THE STATE. human affairs, that Nature abhors a 



IN this country we have no state vacuum, we have in its stead a very 

 Church ; but, on the principle per- ; notable development of state science, 

 haps which, whether scientifically true In other words, our Government no 

 or not, seems often to be illustrated in longer assumes to point out to # us the 



