The upper-class Mexican is generally a large landowner. The great estates which form his _hacienda_ lie in one or the other part of the country, whether upon the great tableland or in the tropical regions which surround it. He spends a certain period of the year upon his _hacienda_, returning to the capital or journeying to Europe as desire or necessity may dictate. Great plantations of cotton, or immense areas of sugar-cane, or _maguey_, or other products yield him the considerable income which he enjoys; and, as a rule, the fertile lands of the Republic are in the hands of this class, to the exclusion of the great bulk of the inhabitants. But the _haciendas_ are important centres of industry, supporting the rural population in their vicinity. The Mexican shares the characteristics of the Latin race in his love for politics, military and other titles and distinctions, and his predilection for holding some Government office. The law, the army, medicine are professions which appeal to him as affording distinction or degree, as well as giving outlet to the love of scientific pursuits, generally, however, theoretical rather than practical. On all sides one hears men addressed as "Doctor," whether it be of science, laws, medicine, or divinity. This condition is observed by the traveller in all Spanish-American republics, and it seems to the foreign observer that the practical and plodding class of workers and trade-makers is insufficiently represented, bearing in mind the large amount of scientific and theoretical leadership. This is in accordance with the dictates of caste, inherited from Spain. The upper class have always had Indians to wait upon them, and a Quixotic tendency to the despising of manual labour has naturally resulted, as among the leisured class of any other country. Any occupation that cannot be performed in the habiliments of the frock-coat and silk hat seems derogatory to the Spanish-American, and, filtering down through all the strata of society above the _peones_ this sentiment has the effect of keeping the young men in the cities and robbing the country of a race of intelligent peasants of white descent. The Spanish-American youth of the poorer class prefers to pass the days behind a counter selling cashmeres and silks to bargaining _senoritas_ rather than to take up work on the land, which urgently requires more distributed and intelligent cultivation.