The policeman does the rest—he never sleeps. Crime does not pay in Mexico. The laws are as swift as a bolt of Jupiter. A person is arrested this morning, tried and shot before night. They waste no sentiment on criminals and they are too expensive to feed.
Another curious custom is, the money received during the day must always be in sight. A wooden tray on top of a pile of goods holds the receipts of the entire day and not a piece is hidden. The taxation law is very rigid, and a certain per cent. of all sales is collected by the city, and the inspector must be always free to look at your sales and figure on his per cent.
As hard as the law is on poor people, you never hear them complain. They respect the laws even though they do not like them. Just imagine an American counting up square and even with a tax collector on a day’s sale! When Bellamy gets his colony in working order and invites me to come and see the wonder of the twentieth century, that is the sight I want to see.
The wearing of pistols here is not a sign of revolution. Probably it is not loaded, and a Mexican would not shoot you for anything. If his liver was out of order to the extent of wanting your blood, he would take his knife and reduce you to sausage meat, but shoot you, never. That is not his style. A pistol is as much an article of full dress as a pair of gloves would be in America, or a tin sword is to our military organizations.
When Mexico had her monthly revolution, and when bandits used to come in and take the town, every man had to go armed in order to find himself after the cyclone; but she has comparative peace now, yet wearing pistols for a hundred years has made it quite a habit. I went on an excursion with a party of harmless looking Mexicans, and we tried to sit down on a bench, and every man and boy of them had to unload his cannon pocket before he could sit down—and the other fellow too.
At your work, the law supposes you to be unarmed, but in making a journey, though it be the length of a street, you are allowed to arm against bandits. On every first and second-class car, ten out of every dozen men will carry huge revolvers, but you might live there for months and never hear of a person getting shot.
In this great city, everything is so quiet you are constantly enquiring if anything has happened, or is happening, or has any likelihood of happening; you cannot understand the absence of noise and bustle.
It finally dawns upon you that the native never hurries. He has mastered the ethics of rest, he never exerts himself. He does so delight to sit himself down long and often and ponder over the wear and tear of the foreigner. The state feels as he does about it, so it has placed comfortable seats everywhere, where the native can rest. Just rest. He never “Hellos” to an acquaintance across the street; if he wishes to speak, he motions with his hand. All this saves wear and tear, and by this means, the nation has saved vast stores of conservated energy to use in the next world. He has been saving energy for four hundred years and has never let any of it out.
There is no “hello” on the street, and no vehicles, and everybody is barefooted, so there is no noise. They don’t “hello” in the telephone. They talk some sweet, musical Spanish in it that is a real pleasure to listen to. Instead of thundering back “Who’s that?” he sweetly says “Quien habla?”—Who speaks?
The national watchword is, “Never do to-day what you can possibly put off till to-morrow.” An excursion agent went to a large hotel and asked what were the rates per day. “Four dollars,” said the major-domo. “But my party contains seventy people, what rates do we get for the party?” “Four dollars and a half each, more trouble.” The same in buying goods. The man who buys wholesale quantities has to pay for the extra trouble he causes the clerks.