one day having given Josefita permission to spend the night at her mother's, I received next morning a dirty note, nearly illegible, which, after calling down the protection of the Virgin upon me, concluded—"but with much sorrow I must take my child from the most illustrious protection of your Excellency, for she needs to rest herself, (es preciso que descanse,) and is tired for the present of working." The woman then returned to beg, which she considered infinitely less degrading.
Against this nearly universal indolence and indifference to earning money, the heads of families have to contend; as also against thieving and dirtiness; yet I think the remedy much easier than it appears. If on the one hand, no one were to receive a servant into their house, without respectable references, especially from their last place, and if their having remained one year in the same house were considered necessary to their being received into another, unless from some peculiar circumstances; and if on the other hand it were considered as unjust and dangerous, as it really is, to recommend a servant who has been guilty of stealing, as being "muy honrado", very honest, some improvement might soon take place.
A porter was recommended to us as "muy honrado;" not from his last place, but from one before it. He was a well-dressed, sad-looking individual; and at the same time we took his wife as washerwoman, and his brother as valet to our attaché, thus having the whole family under our roof, wisely taking it for granted that he being recommended as particularly honest, his relations were
