CHAPTEK II. 

 MEXICAN CLASSES. 



DIVISION OF POPULATION WHITES INDIANS AFRICANS LE- 



PEROS RANCHEROS CHARACTERISTICS INDIFFERENCE 



PROCRASTINATION. FEMALES BETTER CLASSES THEIR SO- 

 CIAL HABITS ENTERTAINMENTS. LEPEROS THEIR HABITS 



EVANGELISTAS THIEVING. THE RANCHERO HIS CHAR- 

 ACTER AND HABITS. THE INDIAN RACE AGRICULTURISTS 



TRADITIONARY HABITS ADHERED TO IMPROVIDENCE SUPER- 

 STITION DRUNKENNESS INDIAN WOMEN SERVILE CON- 

 DITION LOCAL ADHESIVENESS PEONAGE WHIPPING. 



PLANTER-LIFE ITS SOLITUDE AND RESULTS. MUHLENP- 



FORDT'S CHARACTER OF THE INDIANS. INDIAN TRIBES AND 



RACES IN MEXICO. TABLE OF CASTES IN MEXICO. 



An adequate and proper classification of the Mexican population, 

 for descriptive purposes, may be made under the general heads of : 

 Whites, Indians, Africans, and the mixed breeds, who are socially 

 sub-divided into — 1st, the educated and respectable Mexicans 

 dwelling in towns, villages or on estates ; 2d, the Leperos ; and 

 3d, the Rancheros. 



The whites are still classed in Mexico as Creoles, or, natives of 

 the country ; and gachupines and chapetones, who are Spaniards 

 born in the Peninsula. The Spanish population yet remaining in the 

 country, its immediate descendants, and the emigrants from Spain, 

 form a numerous and important body. Her Catholic Majesty's 

 Consul General in Mexico derives a lucrative revenue from supply- 

 ing this large class of his countrymen with annual "protections," 

 or " cartas de seguridad," granted by the Mexican government, 

 but procured from it through the instrumentality of this functionary. 



The Spaniard no longer holds his former rank in the social scale 

 of the ancient colony. There are many wealthy mercantile families 

 in the republic, who owe allegiance to the crown ; but among the 

 mechanical classes there are numbers of poor Castilians whose fate 

 would be melancholy in Mexico, were they not succored and pro- 

 tected by their wealthier countrymen. 



The Mexican native, in whose veins there is almost always a 

 few drops of indigenous blood, is commonly indolent and often 

 vicious. The bland climate and his natural temperament predis- 

 pose him for an indulgent, easy and voluptuous life ; yet the many 



