Page:Face to Face With the Mexicans.djvu/450

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FACE TO FACE WITH THE MEXICANS.

awning, wave her dainty fingers at her lover on the sidewalk, where he stood at least four hours daily.

Puebla has a population of one hundred thousand, and is one of the handsomest and best-built cities on the American continent, being constructed of gray granite. It is the City of Churches—perhaps more emphatically so than many others that have received the name. The schools, colleges, and public library are upon a grand scale. Public benefactions of the highest order are numerous—hospitals for children, the deaf, dumb, and blind, for men and for women. Of the

CASA DE MATERNIDAD.

latter, the Casa de Maternidad (Maternity Hospital), the newest and handsomest, was founded by a private citizen, who left in his will the sum of $200,000 with which to build and furnish it. The material is red brick and white stone in alternate layers, and the spacious interior is exquisitely neat and orderly. Every possible comfort and convenience that could be afforded in any like institution anywhere, is here liberally dispensed.

Puebla enjoys, and justly so, the reputation of being the most cleanly of all Mexican cities. The streets, like those of Mexico, run at right angles—north and south, east and west—and are swept every