The bride was clad in white silk, trimmed with beaded lace, with train about four yards long, dark hair and waist dressed with orange blossoms. Over this, falling down to her feet in front and reaching the end of the train back, was a point lace veil. Magnificent diamonds were the ornaments, and in the gloved hands was a pearl-bound prayer-book. She entered a pew near the door with her mother—who was dressed in black lace—on one side and her father on the other. After answering some questions they stepped out, and the groom stood beside the bride, with groomsman and bridemaid on either side, the latter dressed in dark green velvet, lace, and bonnet. The priest read a long while, and then, addressing the girl first, asked her many questions, to which she replied, "Si, senor." Then he questioned the groom likewise. Afterward he handed the groom a diamond ring, which the latter placed on the little finger of the left hand of the bride. The priest put a similar ring on the ring-finger of the right hand of the groom, and a plain wedding ring on the ring-finger of the bride's right hand. Then, folding the two ringed hands together, he sprinkled them with holy water and crossed them repeatedly. The band played "Yankee Doodle," and the bride, holding on to an embroidered band on the priest's arm, the groom doing likewise on the other side, they proceeded up to the altar, where they knelt down. The priest blessed them, sprinkled them with holy water, and said mass for them, the band playing the variations of "Yankee Doodle." A man in black robes put a lace scarf over the head of the bride and around the shoulders of the groom; over this again he placed a silver chain, symbolic of the fact that they were bound together forever—nothing could separate them.
After the priest finished mass he blessed and sprinkled them once more. Then from a plate he took seventeen gold dollars the groom had furnished and emptied them into his hands. The groom in turn emptied them into the hand of his bride, and she gave them to the priest as a gift to the Church and a token that they will always sustain, protect, and uphold it. Now the ceremony, which always lasts two to four hours, is ended, and the newly married pair go into an adjoining room to receive the congratulations of their friends.
The marriage festivities are often kept up for a week. After that the husband claims his bride, and right jealously does he guard her. Her life is spent in seclusion—eating, drinking, sleeping, smoking. The husband is desperately jealous and the wife is never allowed to be in the company of another man. Life to a Mexican lady in an American's view is not worth living.
When death takes one away the dust remains buried for ten years, if the husband is wealthy. At the end of that time the bones, all that remains in this country, are lifted, placed in a jar and taken home and the tomb-stone used as an ornament. "See that case?" said a Mexican. "My first wife is in that, even to her fingernails, and that is her grave-stone." So it was, there in the parlor, a dismal ornament and memento.
Mexican carelessness does not extend to the saying of mass. A man had three daughters, and each was to inherit $3,000,000. For this reason he would not allow them to marry. One died, and the anniversary of her death was celebrated in fine style. High mass was said, and a coffin arranged on a catafalque forty-four feet high recalled the dead woman. The coffin, etc., were imported from Paris, and altogether the mass cost $30,000. That's dying in high style.
Mexicans who have been to the States much prefer the American style of calling on ladies, but it is not likely it will ever be the custom—for American residents here have adopted the Mexican style for their daughters, and most ridiculous and affected does it appear. American boys, however, have no time to waste on such manners, so they do their love-making by letters and go back to the States for their brides, leaving the American mammas to search among the Mexicans for ones to play the "bear."
[CHAPTER XII.]
JOAQUIN MILLER AND COFFIN STREET.
Dear old Mexico shows her slippered foot, for summer is here. The fruit-trees are in blossom, the roses in bloom, the birds are plenty and everybody is wearing the widest sombrero. From 10 o'clock until 2 the sun is intensely hot, but all one has to do is to slip into the shade and the air is as cool as an unpaid boarding-house-keeper and fresh as a "greengo" on his first visit to the city. At night blankets are comfortable. Tourists are still flocking to Mexico, many with business intentions, and the United States at present is as well represented as any other foreign country. Yankees are looked on favorably by some of the better and more educated class of Mexicans, but others still retain their old prejudices. However, one can hardly blame them, for, barring a few, the American colony is composed of what is not considered the better class of people at home. They have come down here, got positions away above their standing, and consequently feel their importance; they are more than offensive, they are insulting in their actions and language toward the natives, and endeavor to run things. The natives offer no objections to others coming here and making fortunes in their land, but they have lived their own free and easy life and they do not propose to change it, any more than we would change if a small body of Mexicans would settle in our country; and we would quickly annihilate them if they would offer us the indignities the Americans subject them to here.