THE LUSTER OF ANCIENT MEXICO 



9 



gave evidence of the public prosperity. 

 Its frail tenements were supplanted by 

 solid structures of stone and lime. Its 

 population rapidly increased. 



At the beginning" of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, just before the arrival of the Span- 

 iards, the Aztec dominion reached across 

 the continent, from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific; and, under the bold and bloody 

 Ahuitzotl, its arms had been carried far 

 over the limits already noticed as defin- 

 ing its permanent territory into the far- 

 thest corners of Guatemala and Nica- 

 ragua. This extent of empire, however 

 limited in comparison with that of many 

 other States, is truly wonderful, consid- 

 ering it as the acquisition of a people 

 whose whole population and resources 

 had so recently been comprised within 

 the walls of their own petty city ; and 

 considering, moreover, that the conquered 

 territory was thickly settled by various 

 races,, bred to arms like the Mexicans, 

 and little inferior to them in social organ- 

 ization. 



THE LAWS 01? THE AZTECS 



The laws of the Aztecs were registered 

 and exhibited to the people in their hiero- 

 glyphical paintings. Much the larger part 

 of them, as in every nation imperfectly 

 civilized, relates rather to the security of 

 persons than of property. The great 

 crimes against society were all made capi- 

 tal. Even the murder of a slave was 

 punished with death. Adulterers, as 

 among the Jews, were stoned to death. 



Thieving, according to the degree of 

 the offense, was punished by slavery or 

 death. Yet the Mexicans could have 

 been under no great apprehension of this 

 crime, since the entrances to their dwell- 

 ings were not secured by bolts or fasten- 

 ings of any kind. It was a capital offense 

 to remove the boundaries of another's 

 lands ; to alter the established measures, 

 and for a guardian not to be able to give 

 a good account of his ward's property. 

 These regulations evince a regard for 

 equity in dealings and for private rights, 

 which argues a considerable progress in 

 civilization. Prodigals who squandered 

 their patrimony were punished in like 

 manner — a severe sentence, since the 

 crime brought its adequate punishment 

 along with it. 



Intemperance, which was the burden, 

 moreover, of their religious homilies, was 

 visited with the severest penalties, as if 

 they had foreseen in it the consuming 

 canker of their own, as well as of the 

 other Indian races in later times. It was 

 punished in the young with death, and in 

 older persons with loss of rank and con- 

 fiscation of property. Yet a decent con- 

 viviality was not meant to be proscribed 

 at their festivals, and they possessed the 

 means of indulging it, in a mild fer- 

 mented liquor called pulque, which is still 

 popular not only with the Indian, but the 

 European population of the country. 



STRICT DIVORCE LAWS 



The rites of marriage were celebrated 

 with as much formality as in any Chris- 

 tian country, and the institution was held 

 in such reverence that a tribunal was in- 

 stituted for the sole purpose of determin- 

 ing questions relating to it. Divorces 

 could not be obtained until authorized by 

 a sentence of this court, after a patient 

 hearing of the parties. 



But the most remarkable part of the 

 Aztec code was that relating to slavery. 

 There were several descriptions of slaves : 

 prisoners taken in war, who were almost 

 always reserved for the dreadful doom of 

 sacrifice ; criminals, public debtors, per- 

 sons who, from extreme poverty, volun- 

 tarily resigned their freedom, and chil- 

 dren who were sold by their own parents. 

 In the last instance, usually occasioned 

 also by poverty, it was common for the 

 parents, with the master's consent, to 

 substitute others of their children suc- 

 cessively as they grew up, thus distribut- 

 ing the burden as equally as possible 

 among the different members of the 

 family. The willingness of freedom to 

 incur, the penalties of this condition is 

 explained by the mild form in which it 

 existed. The contract of sale was exe- 

 cuted in the presence of at least four wit- 

 nesses. The services to be exacted were 

 limited with great precision. 



The slave was allowed to have his own 

 family, to hold property, and even other 

 slaves. His children were free. No one 

 could be born to slavery in Mexico : an 

 honorable distinction not known, I be- 

 lieve, in any civilized community where 



