cumstances will permit, they are brought out to act as clerks, and fill other places of confidence, proving invaluable aids to the heads of the establishment and strengthening their position.
An evidence of how other foreigners study to please the Mexicans, even to the details of dress, I observed in traveling with a young Englishman who had lived in the United States for six years. He was then about to join his brother, who had resided for some years in Mexico. Naturally this subject was under discussion between us. He frankly told me that his brother had written to him on no account to wear anything that looked American, and especially to refrain from wearing an American slouch hat, as the Mexicans detested that article heartily. Take warning, my countrymen! If you cannot wear a beaver, then a Derby—a stiff, half high, or the genuine wide-brimmed, silver-decked sombrero.
He certainly had obeyed the injunction, for he was a live representative of John Bull, from the apex of his prim-sitting hat, to the tip end of his square English foot. But I was glad to see him thus prepare himself for his future life associations, and candidly told him I should expect to hear of a marvelous success from his sojourn in Mexico.
After my arrival in the capital I found his brother's firm, that of B., S, R., C. & Co, had made for themselves an enviable name as architects, mining engineers and contractors. I had the satisfaction of seeing with my own eyes that the wise head which had planned his brother's advent into the country had practiced literally what he preached. As an equestrian, the native gorgeousness quite melted into insignificance by comparison; while in whatever society, foreign or native, he was a shining light and noted for the suavity of his manners.
The last I heard of the newly inducted young traveler bent on conquest, he was mounted on a litter going to Oaxaca, a seven days' journey, as a mining engineer.
Mexicans are not generally wholesale merchants. Those who have sufficient means to become such, prefer investing in haciendas, which
