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Show 232 WESTERN WILDS. rapidly, producing the present Mexican race; then, by the operation of some mysterious law it ceased, and the people now appear fixed in permanent types. It is as rare for one of the upper classes to marry among the common people as for white and colored to marry in the States. In nearly all lands where there are mixed bloods, the ruling caste is the whitest. In the Turkish and the Mexican armies the offi-cers are quite fair ; the common soldiers dark as Indians. The genie fina of New Mexico are comparatively mild brunettes ; but the " greasers" are at least mulatto color. In the States we say " as dark as a Spaniard ; " in Mexico they say " as fair as a Spaniard." We take our idea from the mixed races; they take theirs from the pure Castilians they see, who are fair as Scotchmen. Their Creole descend-ants in Mexico and the South- west are almost equally fair, but often delicate in physique and devoid of energy. I have spoken of their long names. When one inherits several estates his title often includes the names of all of them ; and it is reported that the " shoddy " some-times insist on being addressed by the full title. Hence the follow-ing ( reported) sad occurrence : A young nobleman, Lopez y Interlo-pez de las Casas Filatas y Amau de Cor, was walking with his in-tended, Sefiorita Inez Pranalada, along the Rio Grande, her mother acting as duenna. While he was at a distance Inez fell into the river, and the mother screamed, " Oh, Seilor Lopez y Interlopez de las Casas Filatas" but by this time the fair Inez had sunk to rise no more. In New Mexico there are about half a dozen castes, the regular dark Mexicans outnumbering all others. The population is classified thus : Americans ........ 6,000 Mexicans ........ 86,000 Citizen Indians ( Pueblos) ...... 10,000 Wild Indians ( perhaps) . . . .-. . 20,000 Total, 122,000 The common people are incredibly poor. If a late peon, now free, has a dollar, he neither labors nor thinks till it is gone. Twenty- five cents of it buys flour, twenty- five goes for dulces for the senora, another twenty- five pays for absolution, and the rest buys a lottery ticket. No matter if his ticket draw a blank a hundred times in succession: " maybe some time I win," is to him sufficient answer. A few families own all the wealth of the country. Even they have their wealth mostly in flocks and herds, and immense as it is, it brings them but few of the luxuries of life. If this Territory is admitted now as |