3 per cent. of the total population
can read and write, whilst as to the labouring classes they are only
just beginning to show any advancement along lines of modern
civilisation. Nevertheless the Government of the country has their
welfare at heart, and in the last quarter of a century has regarded the
working classes and Indians as citizens with rights rather than mere
material for revolutionary struggle, as was formerly the case. The
Mexican people having always been sharply divided into two classes, an
upper and a lower; a middle-class, such as in Europe or the United
States forms the great bulk of intelligent citizens, tends but slowly
to appear, and it is this which must be encouraged to arise and to
absorb the aboriginal element.

[Illustration: THE MEXICAN PEONES: STREET SCENE AT CORDOVA.]

The upper class Mexican is often a well-educated and well-informed man
of the world, and in appearance and habit differs little from the
European. His wealth has permitted him to be educated in the best
establishments his country affords, or often abroad, in France,
England, and in a less degree the United States, and to spend years in
Europe and live a life of ease, preferably in Paris--that true Mecca of
the Spanish-American people. The Mexican gentleman is generally
courteous and punctilious, and gives much attention to dress and
matters of ceremony, after the general manner of the Spanish-American,
and the frock-coat and silk hat form his indispensable exterior
whenever possible. His courtesy pervades his business relations
generally, as well as social affairs. And, indeed, this pleasing
quality permeates the whole social _regime_ from the highest official
or wealthy citizen down to the poorest _peon_ or to the Indian
labourer. The matter of courtesy, in addition to being native both with
the Spanish progenitor and the native race, is, it might be said, part
of the political Constitution. The republics of Spanish-America at
least regard all men as equal in this sense, a condition which is far
from existing in the Anglo-Saxon Republic of the United States, where
brusque assertion of even the meanest authority is evident, in the
present development of that country. Nor is it to be supposed that
Mexican politeness is a mere veneer, or mask, to be put on and off as
occasion dictates, for it arises from native kindliness--a species of
Quixotism of a laudable nature.

The Mexican largely shares the spirit of hospitality of t