countrymen with annual "protections," or " cartas de seguridad ," granted by the Mexican government, but procured from it through the instrumentality of this functionary.
The Spaniard no longer holds his former rank in the social scale of the ancient colony. There are many wealthy mercantile families in the republic, who owe allegiance to the crown; but among the mechanical classes there are numbers of poor Castilians whose fate would be melancholy in Mexico, were they not succored and protected by their wealthier countrymen.
The Mexican native, in whose veins there is almost always a few drops of indigenous blood, is commonly indolent and often vicious. The bland climate and his natural temperament predispose him for an indulgent, easy and voluptuous life; yet the many
faults of his character may be fairly attributed to the want of education, early self-restraint and the disordered political state of his country which has produced a bad effect upon social life. With quick and often solid