Their wealth is lavishly displayed, their taste is exercised to a degree equal to that of any people in the world, and the interior of many of their dwellings furnishes a glimpse of happiness and cultured elegance that, with their less active temperament, they enjoy more than their northern neighbors. Yet the people who receive the latest Paris fashions and literature by every steamer, and who would rather wear a shroud than a garment out of style, still cling to some ancient customs as eagerly as they seize some modern ideas. Social laws restrict intercourse between the sexes, as in the Latin nations of Europe, and Pedro makes love to Mercedes through his father and hers. Marriage is often a commercial contract for pecuniary or social advantages, and a parent chooses his son-in-law as he selects his partners or the directors of a bank. It is an impropriety for men and women to be alone together, even if they are closely related, and no woman of the higher caste goes upon the streets without a duenna. The funeral customs of Mexico are a source of constant interest to strangers in that land, as the burial of the dead is a ceremony of great display. The poor rent handsome coffins which they have not the means to buy, and transfer the body from its temporary casket to a cheap box before it is laid in the grave. Invitations are issued by messenger, and advertisements of funerals are published in the newspapers or posted at the street corners like those of a bull-fight or a play. Announcements are sent to friends in big, black-bordered envelopes, and are usually decorated with a picture of a tomb. The information is conveyed in faultless Spanish, that Señor Don Jesus San a Maria Hidalgo died yesterday at noon, and that his bereaved wife, who mourns under the name of “Donna Maria José Concepcion de los Angelos Narro Henriandos y Hidalgo,” together with his family, desire you to honor them by participating in the ceremonies of burial, and in supplicating the Mother of God and the Redeemer of the world to grant the soul of the dead husband a speedy release from the pains of Purgatory, and eternal bliss in Paradise. The oddities of Mexican life and customs strike the tourist in a most forcible manner. The first thing he observes among the common people is that the men wear extremely large hats, and the women no hats at all. The ordinary sombrero costs fifteen dollars, while those bearing the handsome ornaments so universally popular run in price all the way from twenty-five to two hundred and fifty dollars. The Mexican invests all his surplus in his hat. Men whose wages are not more than twelve dollars a month often wear sombreros which represent a whole quarter’s income. A servant at the house of a friend was paid off one day for the three months his employer had been absent. He got forty-two dollars, of which he paid thirty-five dollars for a hat and gave seven dollars to his family. [Illustration: STYLES OF ARCHITECTURE.]