present President of Mexico came to his office for the first time in 1876, through successful rebellion against the regularly elected authorities; during which period the "Vera Cruz Railroad" was destroyed at different points by the revolutionists, and all travel throughout the country greatly interrupted and made dangerous; and also that during recent years there have been constantly incipient rebellions against the central authorities.
But good government in Mexico is a matter not easy of attainment There can be no good government in any country without good finance, and the finances of Mexico are always in an embarrassed condition; and this almost necessarily for a variety of reasons. In the first place, as already pointed out, the extreme poverty of the masses, the absence of accumulated wealth, the sluggishness of all societary movements, the practical exemption of land from taxation, and the adoption of a method of taxation that blights the harvest that it is desired to gather, all render the collection of an adequate annual revenue very difficult. Owing to the semi-civilized condition of its people, Mexico is necessarily obliged to support an army nearly double that of the United States (45,323 rank and file in 1883), to maintain anything like a permanent government; and the expenditure
