cturesque and
ill-smelling, they crowd the third-class coaches on every journey. In
the year 1907 a total of nearly 65 million passengers were carried. The
enterprise is in the hands of Canadians--The Mexico Tramways Company,
in connection with the Mexico Electric Tramways, Limited, a British
corporation. The great plaza, the Zocalo, presents an animated scene
with the numerous starting and stopping cars on their incessant
journey; and the figures of the saints upon the cathedral facade gaze
stonily down upon the electric flashes from the trolley line, whilst
the native _peon_ and Indian on the cars has not yet ceased wondering
what power it is "that makes them go"!

Life in the City of Mexico for the foreigner contains much of varied
interest and colour, although he or she will have to support with
philosophy much that is incident upon its peculiar character. The
hotels often leave a good deal to be desired, yet they are sufficient
for the transient visitor, and the more permanent resident prefers to
take up his abode in a hired house. The former palace of Iturbide, a
building of handsome architectural form, with a _patio_ of noteworthy
style, forms one of the principal hotels. It has been shown that the
Republic contains a considerable foreign population, and in addition
there is a constantly floating one, brought about largely by American
tourists from the United States. The Americans and Spaniards are by far
the most numerous among the foreign element, and Great Britain is
represented mainly by the fine works of public utility constructed by
British contractors, and by other railway and banking interests.
British commercial enterprise in Mexico has almost entirely fallen away
of recent years, and has been supplanted by American and German
activity. Various reasons are assigned to this loss of a once paramount
commercial pre-eminence; possibly the real one lies in the diverting of
British enterprise to various parts of the British Empire, and also to
a slackening of activity from the great centres of British industry as
regards foreign lands, which seems to be apparent of recent years.
Capital does not venture forth so easily as it did some decades ago,
from the shores of Albion, due to a variety of causes.

A noticeable feature of Mexican business life in the capital is what
may be termed the Anglo-Saxon--or rather Anglo-American--invasion, for
of Britons there are but few in comparison with the ubiquitous American