PROCRASTINATION FEMALES. 



24 



men or by contracting national loans which may finally overwhelm 

 the republic. 



The church, the army, and the government, are thus three per- 

 manent resources for young persons who are too indolent to engage 

 in mercantile pursuits, or too proud to stoop from their hereditary 

 family rank either into trade or the workshop. 



Bad as are these social features, there is another which may be 

 reckoned still worse. There are thousands in the republic whose 

 daily reliance is exclusively on fortune, and for whom the turn of a 

 card decides whether they are to return to their comfortless families 

 with a plentiful dinner, or without a cent upon which they may, 

 to-morrow, recommence their contest with luck at the gambling 

 table. This is a dreadful vice when it becomes habitual among a 

 naturally susceptible, thriftless and procrastinating people like the 

 Mexicans. Prodigal not only of their gold but of their time, they 

 squander the latter without ever reflecting that it is the capital of 

 industrious men. They regard business as a burden, and put off, 

 whenever they are permitted, a debt, an engagement, or a duty, 

 " hasta manana " — until to-morrow ! 



We are perhaps wrong in alleging that every duty is procrasti- 

 nated, and life given up exclusively to pleasure ; for the genuine 

 Mexican is strict and punctual in the performance of, at least, the 

 externals of religion. The pious observances of the church, are, 

 however, even more generally rigorous among the women than 

 the men. 



The Mexican females in the upper ranks are badly, if at all, edu- 

 cated. Few foreign modern improvements have been engrafted on 

 the old Spanish system of teaching, whilst the subjects taught, and 

 the text-books used, are quite as primitive. At home, the Mexi- 

 can lady is obsequiously served by devoted domestics, but is brought 

 up without a personal knowledge of a housewife's thrifty duties. 

 The evil influence of such vacant minds upon the male sex must, 

 necessarily, be very great. Tf the intellect does not suggest topics 

 for conversation, it is natural that the instincts will supply the de- 

 ficiency. Thus it is that the life of large numbers of Mexican men 

 is summed up in devotion to their horses, their queridas, and 

 their favorite gambling tables ; whilst the existence of Mexican 

 women is as easily divided between mass, meals, dress, driving, 

 and the theatre. 



Yet we will not be tempted by an epigrammatic sentence, into 

 condemnation of the whole of Mexican society. It would be un- 



