those that consider it so could for a little while enjoy the matrimonial freedom of Mexico, they would soon discover abundant reason for praising the wisdom of our ancestors in hedging about with so many disabilities an institution which is both the safeguard of public morality and of our free government. Family government, self-government, and political freedom dwell together; while despotism and family license are inseparable. At Mexico, old family relations are not broken up by new marriages. Household family worship is unknown, but, like so many pagans, each one trudges off to say her prayers separately, and at a favorite shrine. The wife has her separate property and interests, which she manages with the aid of her "next friend." The husband, too, has his separate interests, and too often his "next friend" is his neighbor's wife.
After my return from Mexico, I heard a woman in a public assembly advocating, as social reforms, the institutions of a country in a state of moral and political decomposition. I felt like exclaiming, "Cursed be that woman who would introduce into our happy country the social customs of paganism; and cursed be that people who listen to her infidelity!" May a like evil fall upon those legislative tinkers who have deprived the husband of the power of creating a trust for the protection and support of his wife in time of necessity.
We have examined sufficiently the social condition of Mexico to show that there is no natural sympathy between the whites and the colored races, or the governing and governed races of Mexico. For a brief period, indeed, Guerrero, a man of Indian descent, occupied the presidency; but he was deposed and murdered, and the government has ever since been in the hands of the whites. The present Pinto war in the southwest looks toward again reviving the Indian rule. It is carried on too languidly to promise success, as there seems to be no one in the movement possessed