43 
Chap. III.—B. S.] REPUBLICAN EQUALITY. 
Nicaraguans,* although they talk much about social 
equality, are divided into two distinct classes—the 
harefooted and the shoe-wearing. The former are 
the lower class; and though some of them are very 
well off, they always go barefoot, or at the utmost 
wear sandals only. Nothing can induce them to put 
on shoes. They say that their friends would laugh 
at them, and banter them about wishing to pass off 
as gentlefolks. The shoed class—though they may be 
as poor as church-mice, and as black as coal—regard 
themselves as the upper ten thousand, and look down 
upon the shoeless multitude with patronizing contempt. 
It is this class which here, as in all Central America, 
furnishes the political agitators and revolutionists. If 
the country was rid of them, real progress would be 
possible, as the lower classes are peaceably inclined, 
and, considering that they eat nothing but maize 
cakes, a few beans and dried meat, and live in a warm 
climate, work as hard as can reasonably be expected. 
The moral of it is, that if you go to a Nicaraguan 
cockpit, or any other place where you have to pay 
for admission, take off your boots, and confess your¬ 
self not to belong to the upper ten, and then you will 
not have to put your hand in your pocket quite so 
deeply as you otherwise would. 
You must also, if you wish to be thought some¬ 
body, not wear white clothes, as we who have lived in 
other parts of the tropics are so fond of doing, but 
* With the exception of several Indian tribes, a mixed race, negro 
and Indian blood predominating over the Caucasian, and purely white 
men being almost as rare as black are in London. 
