Part 34 (2/2)

209

85

294

Picking pockets

120

25

145

False pretenses

39

17

56

Breaking prison

36

...

36

Murder

15

3

18

--------

--------

-------

Total

3632

3245

6877

+------------------------------------------------------+

Among a population of inferior intellect, and with the excess of women always to be found in tropical countries, the character of the priesthood becomes of primary importance. On this particular, some writers are of opinion that what was written in 1677 will apply with almost equal force in the present day; a position certainly open to doubt.[324]

The lower orders of the priests and friars in Mexico are generally uneducated and frequently licentious. The most revolting spectacles of vice and immorality are exhibited by some of them. They are remarkable for the _roue_ appearance they present, but they can not be considered types of the cla.s.s, for the higher orders and respectable members of the priesthood are exempt from the imputation of such flagrant immorality.

Even these are not blameless members of the Church. Many of them have nephews and nieces in their houses, or at least those who call them uncle, but to whom scandal ascribes a closer relations.h.i.+p.

Among the charitable inst.i.tutions in Mexico, perhaps the most important is the _Cuna_, or Foundling Hospital. It is supported by private individuals, and the members of the society consist of the first persons in the capital, male and female. The men furnish the money; the women give their time and attention. When a child has been about a month in the hospital, it is sent with an Indian nurse to one of the adjacent villages; but if sick or feeble, it remains in the inst.i.tution, under the immediate inspection of the society. These nurses are subject to a responsible person, who lives in the village and answers for their good conduct. The child is brought back to the hospital when weaned, and remains in its charge for life. Few, however, are left to grow up in the asylum; they are adopted by respectable persons, who bring them up either as servants or as their own children. In this, as in other inst.i.tutions of the same character, the mothers of the children often get themselves hired as nurses. There are usually five or six hundred children in this asylum.[325]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA.

Low moral Condition.--San Salvador.--Guatemala.--Yucatan.--Costa Rica.--Honduras.--The Caribs.--Depravity in Peru and Chili.--”Children of the House.”--Intrigue in Lima.--Infanticide.--Laxity of Morals in Brazil and Paraguay.--Foundling Hospital at Rio Janeiro.

The whole peninsula of South America, and the states comprised in Central America, are involved in the same social system with Mexico, derived as they are by common origin from pure or mixed Spanish blood. The same political circ.u.mstances and organization have always affected the various territorial divisions, and whether we consider the semi-civilized nations of ancient Peru and its dependencies, or the savage tribes in the valleys of the Amazon and the La Plata, we find them, after the first irruption of Spanish conquerors, victims of indiscriminate oppression, insatiable avarice, and unsparing l.u.s.t. South America was long considered a mere treasure-field of the Spanish monarchy, to be worked without liability to account by every adventurer who chose to encounter the hards.h.i.+ps of foreign travel, or the perils of residence in a tropical climate and amid hostile savages.

The natives far outnumbered their masters, and the same ruthless system of depression was extended to them as to Mexico. The consequence was, that before the lapse of many generations from the Conquest, there were but two cla.s.ses throughout the vast Spanish territories--masters and slaves. The natural and inevitable result of servile inst.i.tutions could not long be postponed. The descendants of the conquerors rapidly degenerated, and imbecility and incapacity took the places of heroism and ability. The original hardihood and daring, which had vanquished uncounted enemies, had traversed unknown wilds, had defied every danger, were lost in voluptuousness and self-indulgence. The posterity of those men who had discovered a new world, and swayed the destinies of the old by a nod or the stroke of a pen, were unable to protect themselves against the weak ministers of a worn-out despotism, or against any unscrupulous demagogue who could rally a band of roving Indians around him, and maraud the peaceable and well-disposed. A state of political degradation reigned supreme over the whole of South America, only to be paralleled by the debas.e.m.e.nt of its social condition.

In Central America, including San Salvador, Guatemala, Yucatan, Costa Rica, and Honduras, the condition of the women is very much the same as in Mexico. The statements of travelers in those little-frequented regions are very vague in reference to the subject of public morality, and give us no reliable or detailed information on the specialities which would be of service in this inquiry. In Yucatan, the ladies are said to be somewhat more domesticated than their Mexican neighbors, and to interest themselves in the management of their households and the education of their children; but still the standard of morality is not very high, if measured by United States habits and ideas.[326] In the neighboring republic of Guatemala, the free manners prevalent in the country districts of the kindred territories are usually met with;[327] but these would rather indicate low ideas of decency than any actual immorality. Difference of climate and of race would make many things tolerable, or even reputable, which our colder skies and more rigid notions would totally exclude from the observances of civilized society.

The Indian populations of South America have become so completely slaves during long years of bondage that they have lost their prominent characteristics,[328] and are but a reflex of their masters in the lowest state of ignorance. The women may be generally described as of very loose morals, yet kind and gentle unless roused by jealousy, in which case they can use the knife as promptly as their male friends. It is said they make very affectionate mothers.

There are a few tribes who have preserved some semblance of nationality.

The Caribs of Honduras are a hardy and athletic race. Polygamy is general among them, three or four wives being a not uncommon number. The husband is compelled to have a separate house and plantation for each, and, if he make one a present, he must give the others something of equal value. He must also divide his time among them, giving a week to each in succession.

When a Carib takes a wife, he fells a plantation and builds a house; the wife then takes the management, and he becomes a gentleman. The women attend their plantations with great care, and, in the course of twelve or fifteen months, have every description of breadstuff under cultivation.

About Christmas they engage several creers, and freight them with produce for Truxillo and Belize, hiring their husbands and others as sailors. It is also the custom, when a woman can not do all the work required on her plantation, for her to engage her husband as a laborer, and pay him two dollars per week. Industry and forethought are peculiar traits of the Carib women, consequently they easily surround themselves with necessaries and comforts.

The data bearing on the proportion of the s.e.xes in the aggregate population, although too imperfect to be worth presenting, yet go to show that, as in Mexico, there is a considerable preponderance of females.[329]

The disproportion in births is not so great as in deaths; for, while the number of males and females born is nearly equal, more of the former than the latter die annually. There are more old women than old men, ascribable, no doubt, to the greater sobriety of the women, drunkenness being a vice which, under the tropics, is rapid in its consequences. In Nicaragua the women number two to one of the male population. The Department of Cuscatlan in San Salvador has an excess of 1838 women over men, and of 1709 boys over girls.

Peru and Chili, though neighboring countries, and both in the strip of western coast between the Andes and the sea, present considerable difference of condition. Chili is rapidly rising in political importance by means of the internal energy of the people, and the development of natural resources by native and foreign enterprise and capital.

It has been a.s.serted by resident eye-witnesses that female virtue was at so low an ebb in Chili within a few years, that in most families, even of good standing, there were one or more children who were called ”children of the house,” and whose parentage was distributed generally among the ladies of the family. Nay, we have heard that the rites of hospitality sometimes included civilities in respect to the females which are usually considered as peculiar to certain Oriental nations. A rapid change for the better is, however, taking place in these usages, and even the sea-port of Valparaiso is described by Wilkes as being greatly improved from the period of his first visit, when few sailors left it without having lost both their money and health among its women.

Peru has made but little advance in its recent political changes. The government is in a state of continual anarchy. A new mine of wealth has been discovered in the guano deposits of the Chincha Islands, which has attracted great numbers of foreign vessels to its sh.o.r.es. But the wealth acquired from this source has done little for the people. Lima, the capital, has long been remarkable for the levity and dissipation of its inhabitants. The very dress of the ladies, which may have been originally intended to insure seclusion and privacy, has become an emblem of intrigue. It consists of a peculiar hood and petticoat, covering the wearer entirely, who, when thus in domino, is styled _tapada_, and is, by common usage, held to be secure from all impertinent interference or insult. The same term is applied to a shawl worn over the head, so as to cover the mouth and forehead. Under this concealment the wearer is known only to the most intimate friends, and ladies thus attired frequent the theatres. It is favorable to intrigue, and so perfect is the security that any place of amus.e.m.e.nt may be visited with impunity, and, even if suspected by the husband or relative, she is protected from discovery by the respect attached to the custom.

Dr. Tschudi draws a very cheerless picture of the state and prospects of Peru.[330] Its moral degradation is significantly typified in the decline of its population, which has been continually diminis.h.i.+ng since the establishment of its independence. That n.o.ble land, which contained an enormous population at the time of the Conquest, numbered in 1836 less than 1,400,000 inhabitants; not so many as were formerly found in the department of Cusco alone. The deaths in Lima vary annually from 2500 to 2800 out of a population of 53,000; in the ten months from January 1st to October 31st, 1841, they were 2244, the births in that period being 1682, of which 860 were illegitimate.

”Not less remarkable than the number of illegitimate children is that of the new-born infants exposed and found dead (495). These afford the most striking proofs of the immorality which prevails in Lima, especially among the colored people. To them belong nearly two thirds of the illegitimate births, and fully four fifths of the children cast out to die. There is reason to suspect, though it can not be positively proved, that no small portion of the latter suffer a violent death by the hands of their mothers. When a dead child is picked up before the church of San Lazaro, or in the street, it is carried, without a word of inquiry, to the Pantheon; frequently it is not even thought worth while to bury it. I have seen the vultures dragging about the sweltering carca.s.ses of infants, and devouring them in populous streets. * * * * On comparing the lists of births and deaths from 1826 to 1842, I satisfied myself that the annual excess of the latter over the former averages 550.

”The women of Lima are far superior to the men, both corporeally and intellectually, though their conduct in many respects is any thing but exemplary. They cling with invincible tenacity to the use of their national walking garb, the _saya y manto_, in which they take their pleasure in the streets, making keen play with the one eye they leave uncovered, and quite secure in that disguise from detection, even by the most jealous scrutiny. The veil is inviolable; any man who should attempt to pluck off a woman's _manto_ would be very severely handled by the populace. The history of their lives comprises two phases: in the full bloom of their fascinating beauty their time is divided between doing naught and naughty doings; when their charms are on the wane, they take to devotion and scandal. A young lady of Lima rises late, dresses her hair with orange or jasmine flowers, and waits for breakfast, after which she receives or pays visits. During the heat of the day she swings in a hammock or reclines on a sofa, smoking a cigar. After dinner she again pays visits, and finishes the evening either in the theatre, or the Plaza, or on the bridge. Few ladies occupy themselves with needlework or netting, though some of them possess great skill in those arts.

”The pride which the fair Limenas take in their dainty little feet knows no bounds. Walking, sitting, or standing, swinging in the hammock or lying on the sofa, they are ever watchful to let their tiny feet be seen. Praise of their virtue, their intelligence, or their beauty, sounds not half so sweetly in their ears as encomiums bestowed on their pretty feet. They take the most scrupulous care of them, and avoid every thing that might favor their enlargement. A large foot (_pataza Inglesa_--an English foot, as they say) is an abomination to them. I once heard a beautiful European lady deservedly extolled by some fair dames of Lima, but they wound up their eulogy with these words: ”_Pero que pie! valgame Dio, sparece una lancha!_”

(but what a foot! Good heavens, it is like a great boat!) and yet the foot in question would by no means have been thought large in Europe.

”The Limenas possess, in an extraordinary degree, talents which unhappily are seldom cultivated as they should be. They have great penetration, sound judgment, and very correct views respecting the most diversified affairs of life. Like the women of Seville, they are remarkable for their quick and pointed repartees, and a Limena is sure never to come off second best in a war of words. They possess a rare firmness of character, and a courage not generally given to their s.e.x.

In these respects they are far superior to the dastardly, vacillating men, and they have played as important a part as the latter (often one much more so) in all the political troubles of their country.

Ambitious and aspiring, accustomed to conduct with ease the maziest intrigues with a presence of mind that never fails them at critical moments, pa.s.sionate and bold, they mingle in the great game of politics with momentous effect, and usually turn it to their own advantage, seldom to that of the state.”

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