"Permit me, through your paper, to say a few words in print, as those of my pen have been unsuccessfully employed [Pg051] with the _curas_ of Allende and Jimenez, to whom I applied the other day for the purpose of ascertaining their legal charge to marry one of my sons. The following simple and concise answer is all that I have been able to elicit from either of these ecclesiastics:--'_The_ _marriage fees are a hundred and nineteen dollars_.' I must confess that I was completely suffocated when I heard this outrageous demand upon my poor purse; and did I not pride myself on being a true Apostolic Roman Catholic, and were it not that the charming graces of my intended daughter-in-law have so captivated my son that nothing but marriage will satisfy him, I would assuredly advise him to contrive some other arrangement with his beloved, which might not be so ruinous to our poor purse; for reflect that $119 are the life and all of a poor ranchero. If nothing else will do, I shall have to sell my few cows (_mis vaquitas_) to help my son out of this difficulty."--The 'Ranchero' then appeals to the Government to remedy such evils, by imposing some salutary restrictions upon the clergy; and concludes by saying, "If this is not done, I will {263} never permit either of my remaining three sons to marry." This article was certainly an effort of boldness against the priesthood, which may have cost the poor 'Ranchero' a sentence of ex-communication. Few of his countrymen would venture on a similar act of temerity; and at least nine-tenths profess the most profound submission to their religious rulers. Being thus bred to look upon their priests as infallible and holy samples of piety and virtue, we should not be so much surprised at the excesses of the 'flock' when a large portion of the _pastores_, the padres themselves, are foremost in most of the popular vices of the country: first at the fandango--first at the gaming table--first at the cock-pit--first at bacchanalian orgies--and [Pg052] by no means last in the contraction of those _liaisons_ which are so emphatically prohibited by their vows.