Not a generation ago the capital itself was the home of innumerable thieves. In fact, a goodly percentage of the people were either thieves, robbers or beggars. These were drawn from the mestizo class, and formed a picturesque but filthy group of blackguards. They would make love to any one’s pocket, and argue with one another at the point of a long, sharp knife. Each one carried a knife and revolver. “Unfortunate men, women and children, the legitimate heritage of wrong, oppression and misgovernment, thronged the streets begging in daytime, and committing petty robberies by night. They slept by hundreds in doorways, on benches in public parks, in ruined houses, and in the dirtiest of apartments. A score or more of filthy beings of all ages and both sexes would sleep together in one small room reeking with the miasma that rose from sewers and unclean cobble-stone pavements.”
Vice was the natural outcome of such conditions. All natural feelings of delicacy and shame were deadened. Morality was unknown, and they lived like animals rather than human beings. Marriages were unthought of, and children knew not their parents, for even their mothers deserted them. If not deserted, they were frequently maimed and turned out into the street to beg. Pulque and mescal added its touch to the picture. Disfiguring diseases were added, and the name leperos attached to them. Brantz Mayer, a writer on Mexico, has given the following definition of the lepero. “Blacken a man in the sun, let his hair grow long and tangled and become filled with vermin; let him plod about the streets in all kinds of dirt for years, and never know the use of a brush, or towel, or water, even, except in storms; let him put on a pair of leather breeches at twenty and wear them until forty without change or ablution; and over all place a torn and blackened hat and a tattered blanket begrimed with abominations; let him have wild eyes and shining teeth, features pinched by famine into sharpness, and breast bared and browned; combine all these in your imagination and you have a recipe for a Mexican lepero.”
These leperos were the thieving class. They frequented all parts of the city. Even the churches were not exempt and you were just as likely to be robbed by some apparently devout, kneeling worshipper saying his ave marias in a sacred edifice as on the street. In the less frequented streets many hold-ups took place, and the bodies of those murdered would be found on the pavement in the morning. It was hardly safe to move about the street after night had fallen. The thieves’ market was well known and did a thriving business. Here were the pawn-brokers who did a profitable business acting as “fences” for the thieves. Many instances are told by foreigners who were robbed, and, in a few hours, found their property exposed for sale in this market. They were obliged to pay considerable sums to recover their own property.
All these types are now disappearing, and even the beggars are less numerous. The former lawless leperos are now seen in the poor venders of lottery tickets who crowd every public place. Begging is forbidden in most parts of the city. Vice has not disappeared, it is true, nor has it in American cities. The poor peon still gets intoxicated and is dirty, but he is more law-abiding than formerly. Conditions, which are the result of neglect and misrule of centuries, can only be overcome entirely by education, immigration and the infusion of saner ideas, and this is a gradual process. A whole city, or a whole country, can not be plowed up and re-sown in a season, as the corn fields of last year were transformed into the waving fields of golden grain this year. A generation is even too short a time. The change actually wrought has been almost a miracle. Work can now be had by all who are willing to work, and the government is making strenuous efforts to get rid of the idle classes. It is a long and hard task, but another decade under present conditions will work wonders.
An excellent police system is found in the capital and all the other cities. A policeman is not hard to find. One is stationed at nearly every street intersection. During the day he stands like a statue, occasionally leaning against a door post. At night the policeman brings a lantern and a blanket, and sets the lantern in the centre of the crossing, while he stands beside it or not far away. The joker says the lantern is intended to aid the thief in avoiding the officer of the law. Sometimes after the people quit passing, he may lean up against a building and fall asleep, but you can locate his vicinity by the lantern. As the windows are all heavily barred, and the doors are heavy oaken affairs that it would take a stick of dynamite to move, and as fires are infrequent, his lot is not a very hard one. The police are very numerous, however, because the government wants to keep informed in order that a revolutionary movement may not gain any headway. One seldom hears of knock-downs now, and pocket picking is about the only kind of robbery.
These guardians of the peace are generally called serenos. This name clings to them from the old Spanish watchman whose duty it was to call out the time of the night and state of the weather. As this was usually clear, the watchman would say “tiempo sereno” meaning “weather clear.” From the frequent repetition of this term the watchmen were dubbed serenos. The Mexican sereno is generally a faithful and reliable official and is obliging to a stranger. They have made the streets in the City of Mexico as safe as in Paris. The senses of sight and smell may be offended more often, but purse and life are just as secure.
CHAPTER XIX
THE STORY OF THE REPUBLIC
There is a strange fascination about the history of Mexico, and no one can thoroughly understand the country or the people without a little insight into those stirring events that preceded the establishment of the present republic. With the increasing friendly regard and the growing commercial intercourse between the two countries, a few pages devoted to this subject will not be amiss; and the prospective traveller, as well as the one who has already travelled in that country, will find an additional interest in Mexico and the Mexicans.