THE IDEAL MEXICAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 388, 17 September 1880, Page 9

THE IDEAL MEXICAN.

(From the Albquerque JV. M. Review.') Thomas Nast, the cartoonist, is mainly responsible for that unfriendly sentiment entertained in the north for an ide.al southerner who never existed, and for the southerner's hatred of an ideal Yankee who never lived, both these sections have for years admired an ideal Indian who has never yet been found on the frontier. A similar delusion prevails all over the United States with regard to New Mexico and her people, and to those who have never visited our Territory the ideal Mexican is a swarthy black haired nondescript, clad in a most extraordinary costume made up of an immense hat, a bright coloured short riding jacket, slashed tiousers, red sash and big boots provided with jingling spurs.

Armed with his poniard and mounted on his native mustaupr, a wiry animal that can lope day in and day out for a week at a time without fatigue, the ideal Mexican is supposed to spend his time in roaming over the country seeking the excuse of a disputed game of monte to offer up some greenhorn, as a sacrifice to his inordinate hate of the American who comes here to settle.

Everything else in New Mexico is popularly believed to be inspired with the same devilish spirit, the bushes which line the forda of the rivers are to abound with road agents and robbeis ; the cacti to be armed to the teeth and among them centipedes are supposed to prowl provided with a broadside of twenty stinirß, a pair of piueoibat one end of him and two death dealing houKs at ihe other. Here the hairy tarantula pursues the immigrant wiiu duros to ci"S3 the boundary line, and tho gay aud festive rattlesnake plays marches to the grave of his castanets. It would be ri .iculous to deny that there are desperute characters in New Mexico. A large percentage of them, however, aic gentlemen (?") who come here fit on the border States for tLeir health and who have excelleut reasons for preferring the seclusion that a frontier region grants, and it is most unfair to charge as is done every day that the Mexicans are a lawless people, on account of the misdeeds of a class which is almost wholly secruited from outside precincts. On the contrary, the Mexicans, as a class, are the most inoffensive people in the country, and are notably reserved in their intercourse with strangeis. This reticence hr» prevented the better classes being known by new comers, who, meeting only the uneducated, suppose they are fair types of the people, and in that way erroneous opinions as to the Mexican character are formed. It has been a subject of general f. mark by those who have lived in New Mexico for years, that before the advent of the rough element of Americans, who came in with the railroad, both life and property were much safer here than now, and that it was a very rare occurrence for a Mexican to have a difficulty with the Americans, the only surprising thing is that the native population has not oftener resented the insults heaped upon them by that tlement of new comers who act as if they thought a Mexican was made to be abused and bis family outraged. It seems a hard thiug to say but it is nevertheless a fact, that many Americans who have come to New Mexico within the past year act towards Mexican women as if they, as a class, were a race of harlots. If a frimilar course had been j carried out in any community in the East, lynch law would lave I become rampant, and the immunity here of the roughs from that ' punishment they so richly aesei vc is the be»t evidence of the luwi abiding character of our Mexican population.

Sir John Ainoll, of Dublin, the proprietor of the Irish Times, is a Scotchman.

We read in the Yrale France of Lille, that the Chi iatian Brothers of Dunkirk had fftccti of their pupils leceive the certificate of Primary Studies. The lay sehcol of the Rue Faulconicr, founded by the republican municipality, received but two certificates. A Large Meteor. — At about twelve o'clock at night on the 29th June, a meteor as large as a barrel, starting from the zenith, plunged down the north-eastern sky and exploded near Macon t G*., with a report that reverberated for thiity seconds, and shook the earth even at this point. The meteor was about five seconds in falling, during which time the city was lit up as though by a powerful electric light. Much excitement prevailed in the negro quarter. The inhabitants rushed into their houses and closed the doors, filling the air with screams and piayers. The time between the disappearance of th« phenomenon and the report was about three minutes. This would make the distance from Macou übout forty miles.