st indulgence) assassinations,
to the extent of six or eight each day, are the melancholy consequence
of its indulgence. Humboldt states that the police were in the
practice of sending tumbrels round, to collect the unhappy victims of
intoxication. The punishment was, and we believe still is, three days'
labour in the streets; but it does not seem to be very efficacious,
for generally within the week the delinquents are again in custody.

There is something characteristic in the indolence of these sombre
beings. They will travel immense distances; but to steady labour they
are, generally speaking, not prone. It is told of them, that in one of
the most fertile districts (the _Baxio_) it is not unusual for an
Indian, on receiving his wages, to get thoroughly drunk, go to sleep,
and on awakening renew his potations and repose, until the exhaustion
of his finances compels him to return to labour. In some parts,
however, there are exceptions to this observation.

Education has been more attended to, by some of the leading
personages, than could have been expected in a society that had been
so much kept in the shade. We apprehend the advantages are chiefly
prospective, and may be well defined in another generation; at present
they are but small. The whites have been, and still are, the most
educated portion of the Mexicans, owing, no doubt, to their greater
opulence, and having access to official rank. The mass of ignorance,
however, among all classes, is inconceivable to any one who has only
moved in the principal countries of Europe. Nor is it confined to the
lower classes, but finds protection among the highest in the
community. We heard a reverend canon of the metropolitan church
gravely inquire, whether it was possible to reach London except by
sailing up the Thames. And we knew a very pretty, agreeable young
lady, moving in the first circles, who could not write a single letter
at the age of seventeen. She has been since married, and has, we are
informed, been taught to write by her husband, who is not a Mexican.
The religion of all classes resembles too much that of the Indians;
and the practical morality and general tone of society are by no means
refined. If one half of the scandalous tales in circulation be true,
the former ranks with that of Paris in its worst periods, and the
latter is assuredly gross to a degree that would surprise even an
inhabitant of Madrid. The familiarity with which _every subject_ is
trea