THE MEXICAN OF TO-DAY. 357 



to-day. Time, soil, climate, natural resources, had been 

 equal to them all, and behold the difference of result ! It 

 was a case of indigenes capable of self-development, and 

 not capable. Now look at Mexico of to-day. The old 

 civilisation was utterly destroyed. The immigration of 

 civilised people has been too small to materially affect so 

 vast a country and such a scattered population; but the 

 Mexican of to-day is not a savage. The mass of the 

 people, though showing no trace of European blood, are 

 more industrious, more reliable, more honest, more law- 

 abiding, than the mixed bloods. They are steadily deve- 

 loping their civilisation again, because it is in them to do 

 so. The descendant of the wild savage of the time of 

 Cortez is not one whit better now than he was the day 

 his ancestors, the old Apaches, murdered, robbed, and 

 harassed the ancient house-dwellers of America. Doubt- 

 lessly, too, old England had her wild men, who, like her 

 wolves, have been extirpated. 



To-day a mixed breed of so-called British-Flemish, 

 Gallic-Irish and Scottish-Celts, Norman and Picard- 

 French, Hispano-Irish, Saxons and Romans, form her 

 population. All these races are known to have been im- 

 migrant, and, when they arrived, partly civilised ones 

 certainly people capable of self-development. None are 

 supposed to have amalgamated with the savage found 

 in possession; he is not alluded to but as a foe to be 

 killed or enslaved ; indeed, probably the aboriginal ancient 

 Briton had, long before the advent of the Romans on the 

 scene, gone where the Australian nearly is where the 

 Apache soon will be. 



