esidents in succession. The Palacio Municipal
is a somewhat similar structure also facing the plaza, and not far away
is the handsome building known as Mineria--the School of Mines--which
was founded by royal edict in 1813. This building, unfortunately, has
subsided somewhat into the soft subsoil. Within its spacious hall an
enormous meteorite confronts the view, brought there from a distant
part of the country, entire. The Geological Institute is another public
building of kindred nature. The famous Castle of Chapultepec, embowered
in its cypresses, and surrounded by its handsome park, is at a distance
of two miles away along the Paseo de la Reforma, before described, and
serves both as a summer residence for the President and as a military
academy. Around it is a public park. Here it was that the heroic
incident of the American War took place, of the young Mexican military
cadets and the national standard, which has been touched upon in the
historical chapter. A monument is erected here to their memory. A new
post-office was opened in the capital, in 1907, at a cost of three
million _pesos_, to cope with the growing postal business of the
Republic. Among the numerous public squares and gardens of the city is
the Alameda, dating from the time of Spanish rule. Six theatres of good
class and other minor ones attest the play-going inclinations of the
Mexicans, and a grand opera-house is in course of construction out of
the national exchequer, which is designed to bear comparison with that
of Paris. The Governments of Mexico, like those of Spanish-America
generally, consider it a natural part of their function to support
popular amusements of a refined nature. The foreigner might feel called
on to remark that this laudable motive might well be brought to bear
upon bull-fights, lotteries, and other institutions of a kindred
nature! The chief evil of the bull-fight is that it keeps alive the
love of the sight of bloodshed, which is naturally too strong in the
Mexican _peon_ without artificial stimulation, and its brutalising
tendency must go far to offset the good effects of education and
musical entertainment. As for the lotteries, they constitute a bad
moral; the petty gambling and principle of hoping to obtain something
for nothing is evil, and they are banned by all truly civilised
nations.

The chief club and sport centre of the wealthy Mexicans is the Jockey
Club, in a handsome old building in the plaza of Guardiola, a