The most attractive establishment of Tacubaya is the new palace of Don Manuel Escandon, a native-born, self-made Mexican millionaire; a man whose capital has so enormously accumulated before he has even reached middle life, that he was able to propose to discount a bill for $7,000,000 as an ordinary business transaction, though ultimately government divided the bid with another house. This most remarkable instance of accumulation of wealth in modern times is deserving of a passing notice, which I give on the authority of my landlord, who had a personal knowledge of his history. Don Manuel enjoyed, in addition to an intimate knowledge of his own countrymen, the advantages of a foreign education, which had extended to an examination of those arts and improvements that elevate Europeans above the semi-barbarous people of Spanish America. The first enterprise that brought him prominently forward was the establishment of that vast and most perfect system of stage-coaches, of which I have already spoken, on an original capital of $250,000. The wretched condition of the roads, and the heavy losses that at first always attend enterprises of that magnitude, disheartened his partners, who were glad to sell out to him $150,000 of the capital stock at a discount of 50 per cent. Afterward the late Zurutusa bought into the scheme, and ultimately became the owner of all the property, having, before his death, more than realized the highest anticipations of himself or Escandon. A hundred thousand dollars, or thereabouts, were the profits to Escandon by this establishment of a series of hotels and stages quite across the continent. By the successful running of a blockade of the coast, he realized nearly another hundred thousand dollars. The numerous enterprises open to men of superior sagacity, who fully understand the wants of a country in a state of chaos, and are familiar with the improvements of other countries, were readily embraced by him, until he found himself possessed of sufficient capital to become the principal purchaser of the extensive silver mines of _Real del Monte_, of which the salt-works of Tezcuco are but an outside appendage. The tobacco monopoly had yielded to the King of Spain an average return of nearly a million annually. Under the Republic the consumption of the weed had greatly increased, but, from the prevalence of disorder in every branch of the administration, this important branch of the revenue was almost entirely absorbed by the officials through whose hands it passed, so that the sum realized by government in the most unproductive year fell off to $25,000, but finally reached $45,000, the amount at which it was farmed out by Escandon and Company. Since that time the return to government has gone on increasing, until it was advertised to be let the last year at the round sum of $1,200,000. How much more the partners realized during the years that they held the contract is, of course, known only to themselves.