preparation for his change of place and occupation. Like most long-handed people, he was methodical, though not finical, in all his affairs, so that by late dinner-time he had fixed his small belongings in such thorough order, that, had his departure been into eternity instead of into "the mines," the administrator on his affairs would have found no trouble in rendering a final account. | epoch of miracle and much belief. It is full of sweetness and childhood; but, alas! it is itself in its second childhood." "And New Year's Day?" asked Norman. "A barbarous and drunken holiday, borrowed of the sun-worshipers. When the sun approached the shortest day in the year, our an| cestors, who always reveled in the balm of the open air, used to think he might die out altogether, so when, by what is now our new year, it was perceptible that the sun was coming At the dinner-table he found Miss Winans and the family all present, save Miss Judith, who was absent in attendance at some neigh-back, there was great rejoicing. New Year's borly festivities. Day is a sort of hallelujah of that ignorance He announced his readiness to depart early which preceded the circumnavigation of the on the morrow. earth and Newton's discovery of the laws of "So suddenly?" said Mrs. Holten, lifting her gravitation, and the moral of it all is that you brows. "Why not remain till after the Fourth?" asked Miss Winans. "Oh, yes, Mr. Maydole, do!" exclaimed the elder of the younger girls. "There is going to be a grand parade and speeches and readings and songs, and ever so many bands of music, and-and-everything." "It is only a few days until the national holiday, Mr. Maydole-perhaps you had better stay," said Colonel Holten, in his quietest way, looking at Norman as he spoke. "No," said Norman, "I am not much of a holiday person at best, and just now 'my heart is in the highlands."" "There are only two holidays in the republic worth keeping, and they should be kept religiously," said Miss Alice. "Which are they?" asked Colonel Holten, with the quizzical fatherliness he often assumed when addressing Miss Winans. "Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July." "Of course," said the Colonel, "and Yankeedoodledum comes first." "The order is strictly chronological, sir. Thanksgiving came first in our history, and then the Fourth of July. The first may be called our feast of fat things, and the latter our festival of roses." stay and celebrate the day which deifies the moral courage of our intelligent ancestors. You should, indeed, Mr. Maydole. It is the worthiest day in the calendar of saints." "I should like very much to stay and see a great city rejoicing; but the flags, wherever I may go on our vast domain, will keep the old memories illuminated." "Ah! what a wonderful blaze of glory that flag does send across this wide continent on the great day, to be sure!" said the Colonel. "Isn't it most splendid? Everywhere, up and down and across all the wide lands and waters of this vast republic, like the bloom of the orchards, there springs into the bright sunshine one all-pervasive blossoming of red, white, and blue. There is no picture like it or equal to it, in poem, prose, or pigment. Cæsar's royal purpling of the Roman hills was but a daub on Time's canvas in comparison Here she broke off from the theme, and asked: 'At what hour do you start, Mr. Maydole?" "I am to be at the ferry-boat at four A. M." "Then I shall not see you again before you depart, as I am on the card for a night out; but I hope you may wrest fame and fortune from the rock-ribbed hills, and return to your friends a victorious veteran in the battle of life." "Thank you, Miss Winans. There is nerve "And Washington's birth-day you overlook and power in earnest well-wishing." altogether," said the Colonel. "It is not properly American to celebrate the birth of any one man. To do so, even with Washington's grand serenity to sanctify it, is to retrograde from 'the course of human events' toward anthropomorphism." "Oh, Miss Alice, what a big word!" exclaimed the youngest Holten. "I think Christmas is our nicest and kindest holiday," said Mrs. Holten. "Christmas is the holiday of motherhood; but it does not belong to this era. This is the age of 'prove it,' and Christmas pertains to the "In a woman's well-wishing," said Colonel Holten. "Of course," said Alice, "who else is there to do the well-wishing? Men take an interest in each other, but women wish well where they have no interest." "Also ill, sometimes," said the Colonel, in a teasing manner. "Ill or well, a woman's wish is a vital matter, and so recognized by the traditions of all peoples, from Eden to "Milpitas," ejaculated the Colonel. "Where is Eden?" asked the Colonel. "Eden is the place where Investigation found Knowledge; where Knowledge begot Doubt; where Doubt married Inquiry, from whom are the great families of Industry and Thrift-the nobility of civilization. Now, where's Milpitas?" "Well, I think after that, Milpitas is nowhere," said the Colonel, laughing. dropping a remark here and there, until "tired nature's sweet restorer" compelled the head of the house to nod, then apologize, then disappear with a final "Good-bye, and good luck to you, Maydole, if I don't see you in the morning." Then Norman and Mrs. Holten had a cosy chat until she, with a mother's alertness, hear"It is a nice little village in Santa Clara ing the muffled rumble of luxurious wheels and County," said Mrs. Holten. the after-slamming of the door, said: "Well, I am truly glad it is not Saint Milpitas. This is the most sanctified country I ever saw. I am in a state of geographical confusion half the time with Sans and Santas." "You must write to us and let us know how you prosper in your new field," said Mrs. Holten, turning to Norman. "Certainly, madam, I shall have occasion to write frequently." "Oh, yes. But I do not mean the letters you may write to Mr. Holten-of course you will write to him-I mean that I want a letter now and then for us all together, if you have time." "With pleasure, madam, if I find anything to interest you." Thus the dinner-hour wore away, as dinnerhours will wear, with disjointed chat, until the family was about to disperse, when Miss Winans, as she arose from the table, approached Norman, offering her hand, which he took in his, and bade him a final farewell, leaving the dining-room walking by his side; as they passed out of the room she looked into his face, and asked: "I do not see how you can, unless you wait up till she comes home at a late hour." "I will wait." "I will see her at the party-reception, or whatever it is-and tell her." "There is Judith, now," and went out of the sitting-room to meet her daughter. When she presently returned, she said: "Judith will see you in the parlor, Mr. Maydole," and escorted him thither, where, after a few passing remarks, she left him under the gas-light in a summer night. Judith Holten was a fine figure for a large room, and an object which, when dressed with care and taste, as she now was, could not be dwarfed or out-shone by the art of the woodworker, the weaver, the house-furnisher, or the painter. Among the results of handiwork under her feet, over her head, on the walls, and in the costly furniture all about her, she was herself the greatest handiwork. As she stood before him with the lights above her (for with the glamor of festive excitement still upon her, she was not prone to sit down), she crossed her hands behind her back, and, from the majesty of her stately head above her bared shoulders, looked upon him, asked him to take a seat, and altogether dazzled him as he never before had been dazzled; but here, as elsewhere in trying situations, he had 'the sand.' "No," he said, "it is late. I will not detain you. I shall depart in the morning before you are up "So soon?" she interrupted. "Then I insist upon it that you take a seat, and we will have a comfortable little talk. Now be seated-do. I want to quiet down after the dissipation, anyway, and I have not Alice to punish, so I will "I will remember it as a favor," he said, and punish you a little;" then, as he took a seat, parted from her to go his way. she occupied a great square-topped chair, though she did not sit down in it, but knelt upon the cushioned seat, and, leaning against the back, talked to him and listened to his talk. Later in the evening he came into the sitting room to bid the Colonel, Mrs. Holten, and the "little girls" good-bye, after which he inquired of them if he should not "have the honor of a parting word with Miss Holten." "By all means," said Mrs. Holten. "Your departure seems to come so suddenly that it is a little awkward; but I do not think Judith will remain late away to-night, and if you will wait for her, you can meet her in the parlor when she comes." Norman passed the evening into the night talking to Mrs. Holten, till the "little girls" retired, while Colonel Holten read his papers, Now Norman Maydole Jr., however much he may have felt that he was conquered by the woman before him, did not manifest it in his conduct or conversation; but the woman, with that subtile sense for which language can find no fitting name, found means to see through his placid, reserved demeanor, and was also inclined to enjoy it, so far as it could be enjoyed without any open demonstration on either side. Adroitly she led him on in conversation, gazing at him over the fortification of the chair back, and listened to him while he gave his | "Outrageous-insulting-cowardly!" but at the ideas of what a man ought to be, and try to be; word "cowardly" she stopped, sat down in the also of what he hoped to achieve in life, until In that same moment all was silent-he was gone. The gas-lights whispered to each other, and the shadows smiled and frowned among the pictures on the wall, but she moved not. Had catalepsy fallen upon her she could not have been struck into a motionless statue more perfectly. great chair, put her handkerchief to her face, put her hands over the handkerchief, then put face, handkerchief, and hands down upon her knees, and in this attitude remained for some minutes; then she began to shake with emotion which at first might be hysterical, but soon assumed the character of uncontrollable and contortionate laughter, during which she resumed a sitting posture in the big chair, and still laughing and wiping her eyes, she said to herself: "What a ridiculous boy!" Then she paused, and added, looking about the large room, "How awfully still and lonesome everything looks!" She paused again, and tried to look down at the place on her shoulder; then she put her hand softly upon it, and looked at the hand; then took away the hand, looked at the place on her hand which had covered the place on her shoulder; then saying: "I am an idiot," turned off the gas and retired to her own rooms. Next morning, at the earliest dawning of a long day in late June, Norman Maydole Jr., out of the side door of Colonel Holten's den, passed, satchel in hand, into the summer fog of the streets of San Francisco, on his way to the land of silver, silence, and sage brush. At an upper window in the Holten house, he may, or may not, have caught, in the halo of light paling in the dawning, some slight glimpse of a face following his footsteps; but he made no sign that he was aware of any kind of light shining from that window. Being no longer under the spell of the charmer, he was able to see clearly that he had no gentlemanly right to even seem to abuse the hos But the shock, though profound and thorough, did not last long, for presently she sprang from the chair, her face burning and flushed, her eyes flashing, and all her grand physique quiv-pitality of the roof he was leaving, so he strode ering with excitement, and rushed to the closed door out of which he had passed, opened the door, looked eagerly and angrily into the hall, then closing the door she strode to and fro upon the deep, rich carpet, with the soft yet rigid step of a roused tigress, muttering to herself: sturdily away into the enveloping folds of the OUR RELATIONS WITH MEXICO. Have we any relations with Mexico worth speaking of? Has the Government of the United States ever decided upon any definite policy toward our "sister Republic,” or are we commercially and politically adrift? Mexico is our nearest neighbor, and should be our best friend and customer. For her products there is an eager demand here; for our products and manufactures an eager demand there; yet on the entire west coast of Mexico there is not a single American commercial house, and but one, I think that of James Lohse-on the east coast; and that is a hardware house, importing largely from Europe. The entire business of Mexico is in the hands of European merchants. As a natural consequence, European merchants introduce European manufactures whenever it is possible to do so, to the exclusion of American manufactures; and certainly it is only a reasonable inference that American interests generally suffer to a corresponding extent. This status of affairs is not very creditable to American enterprise; and it is still less creditable to the enterprise of San Francisco. We have made great efforts, reaching out to China and the East, where we are getting more than we bargained for, and we have left our natural customer to enterprising Europeans. Of course there must be some reason for this state of affairs; some unusual obstacles must have interrupted the natural flow of the stream of commerce in that direction. It is the object of this article to discover these obstacles, and to consider whether they can be, and ought to be, removed. Mexico is a strange anomaly. Her constitution and laws are as liberal as ours-in some respects, indeed, they are more liberal than ours—yet, notwithstanding, foreigners in Mexico are repeatedly called upon to witness acts of actual despotism. The explanation of this is found in the fact that although the Mexicans succeeded in freeing themselves from the Spanish yoke, they have never yet been able to free themselves entirely from the fatal heritage of Spanish customs—customs imposed upon "the Indies" by the conquerors, to enrich the privileged classes at the expense of the poor, and to aggrandize the mother country at the expense of her dependencies. Señor Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, a very distinguished Mexican writer and statistician, brother of the ex-President Lerdo de Tejada, published, many years since, an exceedingly interesting and valuable book, entitled A History of the Commerce of Mexico from the Conquest to the Present Time (1853), compiled from the records of the various consulates and other official sources. A careful study of this most interesting work sheds remarkable light upon the true cause of the present condition of Mexico, and upon the entire history of the country indeed, past and present, political as well as commercial. It seems only natural and proper that Americans should compare, with pride, the prosperity of the United States as contrasted with the disorganization, poverty, and misery prevailing in Mexico; but when one remembers the brutality and lust of the Spanish conquerors, the terrible burdens which they imposed upon the people, the exactions and trammels which they forced upon the commerce of the colonies, their insatiable greed, the endless list of duties, of And that added to these were additional duties upon the entry and consumption of merchandise, bringing the total duties up to seventy-five per cent.; that it was only by special permission that goods could be shipped at all in foreign bottoms, and then only by paying an excess of duties of four and five per cent.; and that cochineal, for example—which at that time formed one of the principal exports of the colony-paid, on leaving Oajaca and Vera Cruz for Spain, and on its export thence to foreign countries, the extraordinary sum of forty-one dollars and thirty cents the arroba of twenty-five pounds—we can then understand the difficulties under which the Mexicans have labored. In short, Spain was at that time, as she is now, the least liberal and progressive of nations, and she left her emancipated colony a heritage of the most oppressive and exacting laws. The people of the United States, on the other hand, although they considered themselves oppressed, had, previous to their declaration of independence, been subject to the most liberal and enlightened of the nations of Europe, and were blessed by receiving as an inheritance the substance, at least, of the wise and equitable laws by which we are at present governed. milian and the beginning of the downfall of the Emperor Napoleon III. The foregoing is a very brief recapitulation of events, but sufficient, doubtless, to remove any feeling of surprise which one might have felt, owing to ignorance or forgetfulness, that Mexico has not made greater advances toward developing the extraordinary resources which she unquestionably possesses, and which every intelligent person acquainted with the country is convinced are sufficient, if judiciously developed, to place Mexico among the richest, as she is now among the poorest, of civilized nations. It is not surprising, therefore, that we find Mexico divided into factions even at the outset of her attempt to free herself from the Spanish yoke. The privileged classes and the clergy, from the very first, opposed themselves to the liberal movement, and for ten long years sustained the brunt of the struggle in favor of the imperial government. The war of independence commenced in 1810; it lasted until 1821, when the Conservative party and the clergy first realized their mistake, and joined with the Liberals to secure the independence of the country. In 1822 was established the Empire of Iturbide, which was destroyed the following year. In 1824, the "Federal Republic” was declared. In 1836, the federation was suppressed and a Central Government established. In 1842, a Dictatorship was declared. In 1845, the Federal Government was reëstablished. In 1853, the Federal Government was deposed, and a Military Dictatorship declared, which was deposed again in 1855. The ultimate It is only in the natural sequence of events, result of this struggle was the Constitution of therefore, that we find his Excellency, Señor the 5th of February, 1857, which declared the de Zamacona, the Minister of Mexico to the absolute severance of Church and State, and United States in the latter part of 1878, exsuppressed the privileges of the clergy. In erting his influence to procure an extension 1857, however, the Conservatives, rendered des- of commerce between the two countries, and, perate by the harshness of the victors, made a among other efforts, addressing the enterprisdetermined effort to recover their power. The ing merchants and manufacturers of Chicago three years' war from 1857 to 1860 was the con- to that end. These gentlemen, we may be sure, sequence of this attempt, which terminated, were not slow to pay all due attention to a subhowever, in the triumph of the Liberals in De-ject of so much importance, initiated, officially cember, 1860. This was followed by the war or semi-officially, by a person of so much conof the French intervention, from 1861 to 1867, | sideration; and for a short time Chicago was the most fatal, prolonged, and bloody of all. Since that, we have seen the administration of Juarez, of Lerdo de Tejada, and of the present President, Porfirio Diaz, who occupies the Presidency by virtue of a successful revolution, while his predecessor is a fugitive in New York. The administration of General Porfirio Diaz,、 although menaced from time to time by serious revolutions—such as that of Lozada in Tepic— has been, in the main, the most pacific and promising which Mexico has enjoyed for many years: so much so, that considerable attention has been devoted, of late, to the peaceful extension of her commerce, and to internal improvements. Having been engaged in war, as we have seen, with England, France, and Spain, and having by the execution of Maximilian forfeited-if indeed she ever possessed -the friendship of the German States, it is but natural that she should turn toward the United States, as her nearest neighbor, her best, most reliable, and, perhaps, her only friend. The foreign wars of Mexico have been the Spanish war of 1829 to reconquer Mexico, which resulted in the capitulation of the Spanish at Tampico; the French expedition to Vera Cruz in 1838; the war with the United States in 1846 and 1847; the invasion of Mexico by the allied forces of England, France, and Spain; and the French war of intervention, already alluded to, which resulted in the death of Maxi aflame with zeal in favor of the new field which appeared about to open for her enterprise. It appears, however, that Mr. Carlisle Mason, President of the Manufacturers' Association of Chicago, addressed a letter to the Hon. John A. Foster, Minister for the United States resident in the City of Mexico, inviting him to attend a meeting of the merchants and manufacturers of Chicago, in furtherance of the project for the extension of commerce between the two countries, at which meeting Señor Zamacona was to be present. Mr. Foster, "owing to the pressure of official duties," could not attend, but, "deprived of that pleasure,” he nevertheless favored them with that which he presumed to be the principal object of the meeting, viz. : |