at they kept them for domestic uses or for eating purposes, since they
use neither knife nor fork in that process. We were told that this
wholesale seizure had been going on for a month or more, the police
stopping any person whom they chose in order to search them in the
street. Such a thing as resistance is not thought of by a peon; he knows
that it is of no sort of use, and will be the cause of sending him to
prison immediately. Quarrels at low drinking places are no longer
followed by the use of knives. It was the frequency of these assaults
which filled the hospitals with victims and caused the passage of a law
which meets the exigencies of the case. The fine for carrying concealed
weapons is heavy, besides involving the penalty of imprisonment. A
certain class of persons coming from out of the city are permitted to
carry revolvers, but they must be in a belt and in full sight. Probably
no municipal law was ever more thoroughly enforced than this of
disarming the common class of this city.

The tramway facilities are so complete in the city of Mexico that one
has very little occasion to employ hackney coaches. Sometimes, however,
these will be found, if not absolutely necessary, yet a great
convenience. The legal charges are very moderate, and may well be so,
for the entire turnout is usually of a most broken-down character,--poor
horses, or mules, a stupid driver, and a dirty interior, with such a
variety of offensive smells as to cause one to enter into an analysis to
decide which predominates. One dollar an hour is the average charge made
for these vehicles, the driver expecting, as in similar cases in Paris,
Berlin, or elsewhere, a trifle as a _pourboire_ at the end of the
service for which he is engaged. Where these ruinous structures which
pass for public carriages originally came from is a conundrum; but there
can be no possible doubt as to their antiquity. Mexican fleas, like
those of Naples and continental Spain, are both omnivorous and
carnivorous, and these vehicles are apt to be itinerant asylums for this
pest of the low latitudes. There are three grades of hackney coaches in
the capital, those comparatively decent, another class one degree less
desirable, and a third into which one will get when compelled to do so,
not otherwise. Each of these grades is designated by a small metal sign
in the shape of a flag, of a certain color, and the charges are
graduated accordingly. As to the drivers, they are not