158 



SIX MONTHS IN MEXICO. 



country, converted their dollars into more 

 portable articles, that they might convey 

 them about their persons with greater se- 

 curity. This, too, accounts for my having 

 sold the old doubloons which I had brought 

 with me to the capital for twenty-two dollars, 

 though intrinsically worth only sixteen — they 

 afterwards however fell to eighteen. The 

 reader will at once perceive the difference be- 

 tween this establishment and the pawnbrokers'* 

 shops of England : with us the distressed 

 individual is but too often at the mercy of 

 an interested and mercenary trader ; but the 

 public functionary of the Mexican Institution 

 has no interest whatever of his own to serve, 

 — and perhaps a still greater public advantage 

 accrues from the American plan, by prevent- 

 ing the facility with which, with us, stolen 

 property is disposed of through the medium 

 of the pawnbroker. 



