e income of the State.

There is nothing extraordinary in the Church having become very rich by
the accumulations of three centuries in a Spanish colony, where the
manners and customs remained in the 18th century to a great extent as
they were in the 16th, and the practice of giving and leaving great
properties to the Church was in full vigour--long after it had declined
in Europe. It is considered that half the city of Mexico belongs to the
Church. This seems an extraordinary statement; but, if we remember that
in Philip the Second's time half the freehold property of Spain
belonged to the Church, we shall cease to wonder at this. The
extraordinary feature of the case is that, counting both secular and
regular clergy, there are only 4600 ecclesiastics in the country. The
number has been steadily decreasing for years. In 1826 it was 6,000; in
1844 it had fallen to 5,200, in 1856 to 4,600, giving, on the lowest
reckoning, an average of over L200 a year for each priest and monk. A
great part of this income is probably left to accumulate; but, when we
remember that the pay of the country curas is very small, often not
more than L30 to L50, there must be fine incomes left for the
church-dignitaries and the monks. Now any one would suppose that a
profession with such prizes to give away would become more and more
crowded. Why it is not so I cannot tell. It is true that the lives of
the ecclesiastics are anything but respectable, and that the profession
is in such bad odour that many fathers of families, though good
Catholics, will not let a priest enter their houses; but we do not
generally find Mexicans deterred by a little bad reputation from
occupations where much money and influence are to be had for very
little work.

The ill conduct of the Mexican clergy, especially of the monks, is
matter of common notoriety, and every writer on Mexico mentions it,
from the time of Father Gage--the English friar--who travelled with a
number of Spanish monks through Mexico in 1625, and described the
clergy and the people as he saw them. He was disgusted with their ways,
and, going back to England, turned Protestant, and died Vicar of Deal.

To show what monastic discipline is in Mexico, I will tell one story,
and only one. An English acquaintance of mine was coming down the Calle
San Francisco late one night, and saw a man who had been stabbed in the
street close to the convent-gate. People sent into the convent to fetch
a confessor