closures and various methods of inhuman treatment were exceptional, probably not more typical of Mexican conditions than the story of Simon Legree was typical of conditions in the southern United States in slavery days.
That the labor system in force in Mexico was a drag upon the development of the country was frankly recognized by forward looking Mexicans. None have been its more acrid critics. Many are the telling contrasts which they have painted of the conditions to be found north and south of the Rio Grande. Representative of these criticisms are the following: "On the border there is decent labor, supported by justice, with the rights of man vibrating in every nerve and in every drop of blood; the agriculturist with his hide boots and his wage of two dollars gold; the laborer who works in the fields by the day, who upon his return home at night, clean and happy, takes to his arms a flock of strong children." South of the river "is savagery, dark and brooding, a silent barbarity. . . which asks nothing of light, a surrendered right which asks nothing of happiness, a weakened constitution which asks nothing more than a drink of alcohol. . . and five ounces of caustic stuff in the stomach; a paternity without sovereignty, a home without rights, an unhappy wife; a nominal country, slavery—at the price of 100 to 200 pesos. . . ." "The peon is a drunkard because of hunger; by custom, by exploitation, ignorance, dissimulation of the authorities, and because of his tendency to laziness.,. . The family of the day laborer. . . does not exist. . . the children if. . . they escape tuberculosis, hardly reach
