Six Months in Mexico

by Nellie Bly

First-class cars are exactly like those in the States, and the second-class look just like the "Black Maria," except the wheels. Cars, just like open freight or truck cars on railroads, are used for hauling instead of wagons, and a dozen of these, loaded with merchandize, are drawn by one team. Movings and everything are hauled in this manner; the price charged is comparatively small. Cars do not run singly, but in groups of four and five. Even on the first-class cars men smoke as much as they wish, and if the women find it unbearable they go out and stand on the platform; there are two conductors on each car; one sells the tickets, the other collects them.

When the line was first opened an enterprising stockholder bought up all the hearses in the city and had funeral cars made. The coffin is laid on one draped car; white for young and black for old, and the mourners and friends follow in street cars hired for the purpose. A stylish funeral will have a dozen or more cars, the windows of which are hung with white crepe, and the doors with black; the drivers and conductors appear in black suits and high, silk hats; the horses are draped, and have black and white plumes on their heads. The cost of funerals ranges from $20 to $1500. A stylish one is a beautiful sight; the poor, by making application to the police, are given the funeral car and passage for two persons free; the low and poverty-stricken class also hire the coffins, and when they reach the cemetery the corpse is taken out, wrapped in a serape and consigned to a hired grave—that is, they buy the grave for five years, at the end of which time the bones are lifted and thrown in some corner, exposed to the gaze of the public, in order to make room for new-comers, and the tombstones—then useless—are laid in one heap by the gate. The people are no respecters of human bones; Americans always want to go back to the States to die.

Street car drivers, of which there are two on each car, are compelled by law to blow a horn at every crossing to warn pedestrians of their coming; the horns are similar, in tone and shape, to those used by fish peddlers in the States. Drivers of every kind of vehicles use the long lash whip of plaited leather exclusively, and they ply them quite vigorously on their animals; they also urge them to faster speed by a sound similar to that which the villain on the stage makes as he creeps upon intended victims when asleep, with his finger on his lips. It sounds like a whip lash cutting through the air.

The carts in use here are of the most ancient shape and style; two large, wooden wheels support a big square box. One mule is hitched next to the wagon, and three abreast in front of that, and one still ahead; the harness baffles description. Drivers very seldom ride, but trot along beside their team with rope lines in their hands; they can trot at the speed of the mules with apparent comfort.

Mexico does not breakfast. When people go into the restaurants and order a breakfast the waiters look at them in wonder, and inform them in the most polite terms in the world that they have but coffee and dry bread for breakfast. It is asserted that to eat breakfast will cause a heaviness and dullness for the entire day, but whether this is true or otherwise, it cannot be stated, for since our arrival in Mexico we have been unable to find any other than as before mentioned—and black coffee at that. Every family takes their coffee in their bedrooms. It takes at least two hours to get through an ordinary dinner.

A description of dinner in a private family will, no doubt, prove interesting to most readers, especially if they understand the difficulty of obtaining admission into a family. A Mexican will be all politeness, will do anything for you, will place his house at your service, but he and his family will move out. He will do anything but admit you to the secrecy of his house. So this experience is rare.

Dinner was announced and the gentlemen, in the most courteous manner, offered their arms, and we walked along the balcony to the dining-room. The lace-hung doors were swung open, and there before us was the table with plate, knife and fork, and a penny loaf of bread at each place. We sit down, take our napkins, and the waiters—always men—fill our glasses from the elegant water bottles that grace each end of the table. One dish, containing, perhaps, cold meat, salad, red pepper, radishes, and pickled beans, is served on plates, and the first ones taken away from us, although not used. After endeavoring to swallow some of this nauseating stuff, which the natives devour with relish, the servant removes the dish, our plates, knives and forks, and another equally strange and equally detestable dish is brought on. Thus the feast continues, meanwhile breaking the penny loaf in bits and eating without a spread.

Butter, which commands $1 a pound, is never seen from one year's end to another, and jelly is an unheard-of dish. The last dish, and one that is never omitted from dinner or supper, is frijoles—pronounced free-holies—consists of beans, brown ones, with a sort of gravy over them. If a Bostonian were but to visit this country his intellectual stomach, or appetite, would be sated for once. Sliced orange, covered with sugar and cinnamon, is dessert, after which comes chocolate or coffee; the former superb, the latter miserable. With the coffee the ladies and gentlemen smoke their cigarettes.

Children are really good here, their reverence for their parents being something beautiful. When entering the dining room each one kisses its mother's hand, and when she asks them if they wish such and such to eat they reply: "With your permission." Although all are smokers they could not be persuaded to take a cigarette in their mother's presence. The pulque, which is also given around with the coffee, they refuse through respect to their mother; but they drink when she is not by, and of course she is aware of the fact, and has no desire to prohibit them from it. It is just their form of respect to refrain in her presence. A Mexican could not be compelled to eat of two different dishes from one plate. Even the smallest child is proof against persuasion on this point.