Having spoken of the Church, the great power which overawes the government, it is also proper to mention the secondary powers: the men of colossal fortune. In a country like Mexico, whose wealth arises from mines of silver, these immense private fortunes are requisite to the successful development of its resources. Large capitals must be constantly hazarded on the single chance of striking a _bonanza_, in an adventure as uncertain as a game of _monte_. The abandoned mine often turns out to be the treasury of an untold fortune to the man who was laughed at for attempting its restoration, while the most promising adventure proves a total failure. The temptations to these adventures are dazzling in the extreme. The ambitious man forgets the shame and irretrievable ruin that follows a failure, and looks only to the chances of winning a title of nobility and "a house full of silver." Men who shun the gambling-table will adventure all on a mine, and in a year or two they have passed from the memory of men, for they have become poor. Again, a man of slender means has become rich in the Mexican sense, which means a man of millions, and then he is at once elevated by his admirers into that brilliant constellation which is the "great bear" of the Mexican firmament. STATE CREDITORS. Still, these powerful private individuals prevent the consolidation of any government, whether republican or dictatorial, and put far off that necessary evil, the confiscation of the estates of the Church. If there is a Congress in session, its members are influenced as our own are influenced. They are swayed this way and that by private interests. When Congress is not in session, they are constantly operating upon the treasury, or, rather, the minister of the treasury is diving about among them to raise the means to keep afloat from day to day. They will not submit to their full share of taxation. When they advance money on the pledge of some income, it is on the most onerous terms, so that at least one quarter of the revenue of Mexico is used up in interest or usury. Long experience has reduced the business of shaving the revenue to a system. The most common way to do this is to buy up some claim at twelve and a half cents on a dollar, and then couple it at par with a loan of money on the assignment of some _rent_. Every thing is farmed out, until at last, two years ago, Escandon proposed to farm the whole foreign duties.