culars, assigning as a reason for this request
"that the latter display extravagant luxury, leave great wealth to
their natural children, and give great scandal to the newly-converted
Indians." Hence more than one half of the Mexican clergy are monks, and
wear the cowl; for at the time of the census of 1793, as we have seen,
there were in the city of Mexico 1646 monks, besides lay brothers,
against 550 secular priests, while in the fifteen convents for nuns
there were 923 of these female monks.

CHARACTER OF THE DIFFERENT ORDERS.

The reader has already become quite familiar with the Franciscan
fathers and their vows of poverty and self-mortification, and their
skill at playing for gold ounces. They have pretty well maintained that
reputation since the time of Friar Thomas Gage. But there are some
honorable exceptions to this rule, though few and far between. We have
already noticed how they were favored by Cortez, and the result has
been that they are the richest fraternity in the republic. These holy
men of the Angelic Order of Saint Francis have lately discovered a new
source of wealth in renting their large central court to a Frenchman,
who occupies it with the best garden of plants in Mexico; and as the
convent occupies nearly a whole square in the central part of the city,
they have pierced the convent walls, and rented out shops upon the
business streets, while the soldiers of Santa Anna occupy the vacant
cloisters of the convent. In this "happy family," with all the immense
wealth of the establishment, the _donados_, and those monks who are so
poor as to have no friends, find but a miserable subsistence.

Of the Dominicans I have already spoken in connection with the
Inquisition. In their yard is the flag-stone which was used by them in
offering human sacrifice before the Revolution. There it is kept as a
relic and symbol of the power once enjoyed by the Church. There is yet
a lingering hope that there may be restored to these brethren the power
of roasting alive human beings. In speaking of depravity of morals, it
is hard to say which of the fraternities has reached the lowest level,
though common consent concedes the palm to the Dominicans.

The name of the Carmelites carries us back to the time of the Crusades;
but they are better known in Mexico as the former proprietors of the
_Desierto_, which Thomas Gage so touchingly describes. Their habitual
practice of self-denial and mortification, in appearance,