e Archbishop, the
President, and of divers city bankers; and where the English banker,
Mr. Jimmerson, has introduced English gardening, and, in a Mexican
climate, enjoys the pleasure of an English country residence.

DON MANUEL ESCANDON.

The most attractive establishment of Tacubaya is the new palace of Don
Manuel Escandon, a native-born, self-made Mexican millionaire; a man
whose capital has so enormously accumulated before he has even reached
middle life, that he was able to propose to discount a bill for
$7,000,000 as an ordinary business transaction, though ultimately
government divided the bid with another house. This most remarkable
instance of accumulation of wealth in modern times is deserving of a
passing notice, which I give on the authority of my landlord, who had a
personal knowledge of his history.

Don Manuel enjoyed, in addition to an intimate knowledge of his own
countrymen, the advantages of a foreign education, which had extended
to an examination of those arts and improvements that elevate Europeans
above the semi-barbarous people of Spanish America. The first
enterprise that brought him prominently forward was the establishment
of that vast and most perfect system of stage-coaches, of which I have
already spoken, on an original capital of $250,000. The wretched
condition of the roads, and the heavy losses that at first always
attend enterprises of that magnitude, disheartened his partners, who
were glad to sell out to him $150,000 of the capital stock at a
discount of 50 per cent. Afterward the late Zurutusa bought into the
scheme, and ultimately became the owner of all the property, having,
before his death, more than realized the highest anticipations of
himself or Escandon. A hundred thousand dollars, or thereabouts, were
the profits to Escandon by this establishment of a series of hotels and
stages quite across the continent. By the successful running of a
blockade of the coast, he realized nearly another hundred thousand
dollars. The numerous enterprises open to men of superior sagacity, who
fully understand the wants of a country in a state of chaos, and are
familiar with the improvements of other countries, were readily
embraced by him, until he found himself possessed of sufficient capital
to become the principal purchaser of the extensive silver mines of
_Real del Monte_, of which the salt-works of Tezcuco are but an outside
appendage.

The tobacco monopoly had yielded to the King of