make for the first town and drink or gamble it away. Then, not having funds enough to get home, he is again at the mercy of the contract agent or plantation owner. The little brown man with back bent under a load has a countenance which is as full of rest and patient philosophy as a modern financier’s face is of care and wrinkles of anxiety. It is almost unfair to the simple-minded, patient and docile peon of Mexico to speak of him as an Indian for he is at once confused with the bloodthirsty redskin of the north. He is a peaceful, if improvident, character, and is a child in nature. He represents cheap labour and is one of the great attractions that brings wealth to Mexico. After a day’s work he is content to share his little adobe hut with the pigs and chickens, and can even find room for the chance wayfarer. A family of three or four generations, and numbering twenty people, will live in a hut that would not be considered a fit habitation for a donkey in the north. One American writer who was obliged to seek shelter in one of these huts gives an amusing account of his experience which shows the harmony and good-fellowship that exists in these households between the human and brute members. “I took an account of the stock before I turned in, and found there were three dogs, eleven cats, seven children, five men (not including five of us), three women and a dozen chickens, all sleeping, or trying to sleep, in the same room, under the one roof. And when I gave up sleeping, or trying to sleep, and wandered out into the night, I stepped on the pigs and startled three or four calves that had been sleeping under the porch.” So it is not surprising that a village of fifty huts may contain a thousand souls. A cigarette given in proper spirit every day will more effectually keep his friendship than a present of a new suit of clothes. The latter will not be remembered long while the former keeps the memory ever fresh. They have been called the best and the poorest servants in the world. A trusted servant is, however, usually an honest one. These wholly satisfied people with whom our essentials are non-essentials rather disprove the theory that modern civilization is necessary to true happiness. Will the peon in the future wearing shoes, eating prepared breakfast foods and sleeping in a bed, be any happier than he is now barefooted and sleeping on a rush mat spread on an earthen floor?