VII
These people, of whatever class, are naturally tolerant toward one another.
A man may be strictly moral, and many of them are, even in aristocratic circles, yet he never takes it upon himself to enforce a similar morality on his neighbor. There are no organizations in Mexico or Central America for minding other people’s business. The only society engaged in uplifting the fellow of different viewpoint in these parts is one with offices at Albany, New York, which sends out propaganda to combat the evil of bull-fighting.
Whether one wishes to raise the devil or not, one has a comfortable sense of liberty here which is lacking in Anglo-Saxon lands. If one chooses to drink, and to become disgracefully drunk, to such an extent that we at home would remark the next day, “You certainly were a mess last night!”, there is no such comment forthcoming from a Latin American. Like the little General at Culiacán, the native of any of these countries will say, “You were very lively last evening.”
Perhaps the wife of his hotel proprietor will even compliment him. “After sixteen copitas of Scotch whiskey, you did not molest a single one of my servant-girls,” she will say. “You have a remarkably fine character, señor!”
And he sobers up, feeling that he has been a paragon of virtue.