Special Dispatch to the Herald.
Guanajuato, February 10th.—The local treasury will soon be full to overflowing from the numerous fines collected from sons of the mountains who daily endeavor to enter this ancient town clad in cotton drawers. The law is strict in this particular, and the police in the suburbs have strict orders to see that no peon enters the town without a pair of factory-made trousers.
[It would be interesting to know who, in Guanajuato, owns the largest interest in the local trousers factory.]
I remember one jefe político to whom it occurred that he might start a butcher shop and ruin the business of the only other butcher shop in town, which was kept by a man he happened to dislike. When he had completed his arrangements for the sale of meat, he caused a rumor to circulate among the lower classes to the effect that life would be a gladder, sweeter thing for all concerned if the meat he was now prepared to dispense should find a market both ready and sustained. To the American and English rancheros of the neighborhod he had letters written by various friends of his who happened to know them; courteous not to say punctilious letters that, however, contained somewhere between the lines an ominous rumble. “I thought it might interest you to learn that H—, the jefe, has opened a butcher shop and would consider it an honor if you were to favor him with your patronage, instead of bestowing it upon his competitor,” the letters ran in part. Though somewhat more rhetorical, it all sounded to the unattuned ear as innocent as any of the numerous advertisements one receives by post in the course of a week at home. But it wasn’t. In a “republic,” where the governors of the various states must be without question the political friends of the president, and the jefes are usually, with no more question, the political friends of the governors, the suggestion that a jefe would not object to one’s purchasing beefsteaks from him is not lightly to be ignored. The local jefe can, in a hundred subtle ways, make one’s residence in Mexico extremely difficult and disagreeable. Every foreigner who received one of the inspired epistles changed his butcher the next day. Another jefe of my acquaintance—a rather charming man—decided to pave a certain country road chiefly because it went through some land owned by his brother. As most of the able-bodied convicts of that district were engaged in paving a much more important highway and he could not very well draw upon their forces, he magnificently sent out a messenger who floundered through the mud from ranch to ranch, announcing to the countryside that henceforth every man would have to labor, without compensation, one day in eight upon the road. Now, to most of the people who received the message, this particular road was of no importance; they rarely used it and they owned no land through which it ran. And yet—whether from the habit of submitting to tyranny, or from guilty consciences, I don’t know—many responded with their time and their toil. When asked, as we frequently were, for advice on the subject, we refrained from giving any.
The habit of suspicion and the impulse to make, for no very definite reason, little displays of personal independence would tax one’s patience and amiability to the utmost if one did not keep on hand a reserve fund of these qualities with which to fortify oneself against frequent exhibitions of Mexican honor. In referring to this somewhat rococo subject, it is perhaps but fair for me to admit that even so comparatively simple a matter as the Anglo-Saxon sense of honor presents certain difficulties to my understanding. Explain and expound as many intelligent gentlemen have to me, for instance, I have never been able to grasp why it is so much more dishonorable to evade one’s gambling debts than it is to evade one’s laundress. Therefore I do not feel competent to throw a great light upon the kind of honor that obtains in Mexico. I can only observe that, like politeness, smallpox, and fine weather, it is very prevalent, and record an example or two of the many that arise in my memory, by way of illustrating one of the obstacles in the employer’s path.
A few winters ago we hired a youth to bring our letters and fresh meat every day from the town to the ranch. He performed this monotonous service with commendable regularity, and with a regularity not so commendable always cut off at least a quarter of the meat after leaving the butcher shop and gave it to his mother who lived in town. Furthermore, when the workmen on the place intrusted him with letters to post on his return, he posted them if they were stamped, but scattered them in fragments if they were not, and pocketed the money. We knew he did both these things because we found and identified some of the epistolary fragments, and his mother had the monumental brass to complain to the butcher when the meat was tough! But even so, he was a convenience—none of the laborers could be regularly spared at the time—and we made no moan. One day, however, it was impossible to ignore the matter; he arrived with a bit of beefsteak about as large as a mutton chop and had the effrontery, as we thought, to deliver it without a word of explanation. So, as the imposition had been going on for at least six weeks, he was as kindly as possible, most unfortunately, accused. Then followed an exhibition of outraged innocence such as I have never before seen. He turned a kind of Nile green; he clenched his fist and beat upon his chest. He made an impassioned address in which he declared that, although his family was poor and needed the twenty-five centavos a day we paid him, he could not continue to work for anyone who had sought to cast a reflection upon his spotless honor; and he ended by bursting into tears and sobbing for ten minutes with his head on a bag of coffee.
The tragic, humorous, and altogether grotesque part of the affair was that on this particular day for the first time, no doubt, since we had employed him, he hadn’t stolen the meat! We learned from the butcher a few hours afterwards that there had been scarcely any beefsteak in the shop when the boy had called, but that he had sent a few ounces, thinking it was better than nothing at all. We lost our messenger; his mother would not allow him to work for persons who doubted his honesty.
A friend of mine had in his employ an old man—an ex-bullfighter—who took care of the horses and accompanied the various members of the family when they went for a ride. He was given to gambling, and on one occasion when he had lost all his money but could not bring himself to leave the game, he gambled away a saddle and bridle of his employer. Shortly afterwards my friend recognized them in the window of a harness shop and bought them back, without, however, mentioning the fact to old Preciliano, who, when casually asked where they were, replied quite as casually that at the public stable where the horses were kept they had become mixed with some other equipment and taken away by mistake. He explained that he knew the distant ranchero who had inadvertently done this and that steps had been taken to have them returned. For several weeks my friend amused himself by asking for—and getting—minute details of the saddle’s whereabouts and the probable date of its arrival, and then one day he abruptly accused Preciliano of having lost it in a game of cards.
This was followed by almost exactly a repetition of the performance we had been given by the meat-and-letter boy. Preciliano was not only astonished that the señor could for a moment imagine such a thing, he was hurt—wounded—cruelly smitten in his old age by the hand he had never seen raised except in kindness. All was lost save honor. That, thank God, he could still retain—but not there; not under that roof. He could not remain covered with shame in the shadow of so hideous a suspicion. Honor demanded that he should “separate” himself at once—honor demanded all sorts of things in this vein until my friend, who said he was positively beginning to believe Preciliano very much as Preciliano believed himself, suddenly stooped down and pulled the saddle and bridle from under the table. Collapse. Tears. Forgiveness. Tableau.