Antonio García Cubas was born July 24, 1832, in the City of Mexico. He began study looking toward engineering in the year 1845, although not actually taking the degree of engineer until 1865. His technical studies were pursued in the Colegio de San Gregorio, the Minería (School of Mines), and the Academia de San Carlos. His studies were repeatedly interrupted by appointments of importance and by public commissions. Thus, in 1853 he published a general map of the Mexican Republic. Since that date he has done much geographical and engineering work of importance. In 1865, he served on the Scientific Commission of Pachuca. In 1866 he did the leveling for the Mexican Railway to Tulancingo. He published his first Atlas in 1857; in 1863, his Carta general (General map), in 1876 his Carta administrativa (Administrative map), in 1878, his Carta orohydrographica (Orographic-hydrographic map), still perhaps the best maps of Mexico, of their kind. In 1882, his great Atlas, geografico, estadistico, y pintoresco de la Republica Mexicana (Geographical, Statistical, and Picturesque Atlas of the Mexican Republic) was published. In addition to these and other equally important scientific works, Señor García Cubas has written various school books in geography, history, etc. Our selections are taken from a little volume, Escritos diversos (Miscellaneous Writings).
The work of Señor García Cubas has received wide and well-deserved recognition. He is a member of the Geographical Societies of Paris, Lisbon, Madrid and Rome; he has received scores of medals and diplomas; he holds the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In his own country he is a member of all the scientific societies but has naturally been most interested in the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadstica (The Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics). He has ever been active in movements for public advancement and among many results of his interest we may mention the Conservatory of Music.
THE INDIANS OF MEXICO.
The statistical data, imperfect though they have been, have given force and value to the opinion, which for me is a fact, that the indigenous race becomes debilitated and decreases in proportion as the white race becomes strong and advances. This fact is in complete accord with the laws of nature; the disadvantage of the indigenous race consists, for its decrease, in its customs and in the hygienic conditions of its mode of life. A miserable hut serves as a habitation for a numerous family and in it, the inmates actually packed together, cannot but breathe a polluted air; food is scanty and innutritious, while the daily occupations are heavy and hard. Sad indeed is the sight of these unhappy indigenes who without distinction of sex and age are encountered in our city streets and who, exhausted under the weight of enormous burdens, return to their villages with the miserable pittance gained from their trading.
If we consider the Indian from the time of his birth, or even from before his birth, we see his life to be but a series of miseries and abjections. The Indian women, even at the time of travail, do not cease from their wearisome tasks and, without thought for the being who stirs within them, occupy themselves in grinding maize and making tortillas, labors which cannot but prove hurtful to the act of giving birth. While the period of suckling has not passed, the child is fed with tortillas and fruits and other foods unsuited to its digestive powers, causing by such imprudence diarrhœas and other diseases, which carry the children to the grave or, as they grow, leaves them infirm and feeble. Smallpox, in consequence of the neglect of the parents and their indifference to vaccination, causes frightful ravages—the disease being most pernicious in the indigenous race.
Such statistics as I possess of the movement of population in the pueblo of Ixtacalco, while they indicate that the Civil Registry has not yet extended its dominion to that pueblo, corroborate the opinion that the decrease of the race is mainly due to infant mortality.
| In 1868 there were born | 165 |
| There died | 190 |
| Loss | 25 |
In this mortality there were one hundred and forty children. In the year 1869, although the data show an augmentation of fifty-nine persons in the population, the infant deaths number sixty-five, to thirty-four of adults.
One fact ought to particularly call our attention because it proves that the degradation of the race is not in its constitution but in the customs of its members. The Indian women of the villages near the Capital, hiring themselves out as nurses in private homes, rear healthful and robust children, because in their new employment they improve their condition, by enforced cleanliness, by good food, and by the total change in their hygienic conditions. But this very circumstance is a serious misfortune for the race, the women impelled by the desire to gain better wages, abandoning their own children to the mercenary cares of other women, as if the lack of a mother’s love and care could be made good!
Another of the reasons which, in my opinion, cause the degeneration of the indigenous race, is that marriage takes place unwisely and prematurely. According to medical opinion, the nubile age of woman in our country is eighteen years, in the hot lands fourteen; between medical theory and actual practice there is an enormous difference. As regards the Indians, frequently union occurs between a woman scarcely arrived at the term of her development and a man of forty years or more, entirely developed and robust; as a consequence, the woman becomes debilitated and infirm and her children are weak and degenerate.