acquired and engendered by the various circumstances that have hedged them about, for which all allowance must be made. If due patience and tact be exercised in the outset by foreign housekeepers, they will surely become deeply attached to the entire household, and better servants are not to be found. Especially is this true with regard to American children, to whom they become extremely devoted. But it must be remembered that their customs are overgrown with the moss of centuries, and care must be exercised in disturbing it by foreign methods of labor, or the application of new ideas. They know their own way, and have a repugnance to any interference with their precious "costumbres."
In their various employments their deportment is of the most quiet kind. If the mistress desires their attention, unless near at hand she does not call their names, but merely slaps her hands together, which attracts immediate attention. This clapping is practiced in the street as well as in the house. Nothing would sooner confuse a servant than calling her name in a loud, harsh key.
On the frontier the mistress is known as señora, but in interior towns and cities she is always the niña (child), no matter if she has reached a hundred years.
The hand motion by which a servant is summoned is the reverse of our beckoning sign—the palm being turned outward.
The wages of a cook are from $2.00 to $5.00 per month; coachman, from $10.00 to $30.00; serving women, $3.00 to $8.00; and so on in like proportion.
With these small sums entire rations are not furnished them. They are paid a medio and quartillo each day, independent of their wages, to buy coffee and bread in the morning, and bread and pulque for each dinner and supper; or they are paid 62½ cents every eight days, for this purpose. In some places a medio's worth of soap is given them each week to have their clothes washed, and the lower the wages, the less soap they get. The value of this soap is often collected a month in advance, thus leaving a glaring deficit in their clean clothes account.
