COURT-YARD OF A PRIVATE HOUSE.
"The building has suffered from the elements, the cupolas of the towers having been thrown down by an earthquake in 1818. Some time in the sixties lightning struck the cathedral during service, and two of the organists were killed by the shock. There are many valuable paintings in the cathedral, and in the vaults beneath it are the bones of the bishops and priests that have died here during the last 300 years and more.
"We visited several other churches, and went to the great hospital of San Miguel de Belan, which is generally known as 'The Belan.' It is near the centre of the city, and covers, or rather encloses within its walls, about eight acres of ground. It was founded about 100 years ago, and at one time had a very large revenue; but successive revolutions and robberies have plundered it of nearly all its possessions. It had an income of $1,000,000 a year in its best days, but has barely ten or fifteen thousand at present.
IN THE POOR QUARTERS.
"It is the best constructed hospital edifice we ever saw, and we're very sorry Doctor Bronson is not here to see and appreciate it. The buildings are only one story high, so that the patients, doctors, and nurses have no stairs to climb, and the rooms are twenty-five feet from floor to ceiling, and well ventilated. The thick walls and roof make the place warm in winter and cool in summer; and they told us there is no artificial heating, and but little change of temperature throughout the year.
"There is another immense establishment, called the Hospicio de Guadalajara, which is an asylum rather than a hospital, and an asylum for everybody. It was founded about the same time as the Belan hospital, by some gentlemen of immense wealth, and they are said to have expended eight or ten millions of dollars in building and endowing it. Sixteen hundred people are accommodated there, from infants only a few hours old up to people who are nearing the end of a century of life. It has sixteen departments that comprise an Infant Asylum, Reform School, Juvenile School, Orphan Asylum, Deaf and Dumb Asylum, Blind Asylum, Home for the Aged and Indigent, High-schools for Boys and Girls, School of Arts, Schools of Trades, Workshops, College, and Hospital!
"We saw boys in the workshop making shoes, clothes, hats, and other articles of wear, while others were at work at carpentering, and still others were setting type and working a printing-press of the old-fashioned kind. In the girls' section there were classes in sewing, knitting, lace-making, and the like; and there were classes of young women who were learning fine embroidery, music, and painting, to fit them for governesses in families. It would take too long to write down all we saw and heard, and you might get tired before you read it through. We couldn't help wishing that some of our very rich men would endow just such establishments in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other large cities of the United States, and take their reward in the knowledge that they had done a great deal of practical good.