Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/311

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CIRCUS PERFORMANCES AT AN OLD CONVENT.
299

their estimation—by a present of a dollar a piece, and quiet once more restored, we went rapidly back to the city which we reached at night-fall, after one of the pleasantest days we enjoyed in Mexico.

Among the minor demonstrations was the grand funcion by Bell & Buislay's Circus at the Circo de Charini in the old Convent of San Francisco. Great preparations had been made, specially, for the occasion, and the Government lent a military band and a regiment of its choicest troops, to add eclat to the affair. The grand court-yard of the convent is used for the circus, the ring covering the spot in which the dead of centuries lie buried, and the corridors rising one above the other, with their graceful pillars and costly ornamentation form the galleries, which are divided into boxes. What a change in the institutions and the religious sentiments of this once bigoted Catholic people this indicates, can be readily understood.

Noticing that the mochos did not appear to be there in great numbers, I asked the reason of a common mechanic or tradesman of some kind who chanced to be near me at the moment. His reply:

"Because they will not submit to see the burial ground of their ancestors desecrated by a circus," contains more of bitterness, satire, and hatred, than I have ever seen before in a single sentence, and is curiously illustrative of the state of feeling in the capital.

The vast audience arose and bowed, en masse, as Mr. Seward entered, and the troops presented arms, while the band played the national hymn. The performance, consisting of the usual ring exhibition, tableaux, including one representing the "Moral Alliance of the two Republics," etc., etc., passed off well.