having expired, the duty was reimposed, which led to tariff reprisal on the part of Mexico whose government hastened to levy a heavy import duty on live animals and fresh meats.
Additional and extensive land deals were again concluded. Another 500,000 acres in Coahuila was sold to the company already owning 2,000,000.[1] Another 2,000,000 acres in the state of Vera Cruz were sold to a Californian; a vast expanse in northern Chihuahua passed into the keeping of a Chicago syndicate; the famous Lorenzo estate became the property of some Parisian speculators, while the shrewd Mormons in busy pursuit of their insidious teachings acquired a fertile tract in the smiling valley of the Casas Grande.
Material progress, however, did not outstrip intellectual advancement. Schools and colleges of agriculture, medicine, science, music and fine arts, national museums, and libraries sprung up all over the land. With the secularization of the church property, the state became the owner of the spacious conventual buildings and the great libraries containing many and rare volumes were thrown open to the public. Though the bill introduced into the chamber of deputies made free elementary school instruction compulsory throughout the republic, imposing a fine upon the parents who neglected to send their children, there was still a wide field open in Mexico for teaching the impressionable natives of Anahuac—the descendants of the once powerful Aztecs—the simple tenets' of the religion of Christ.
The libraries of Puebla and the city of Mexico are
- ↑ One quarter of the entire state was now owned by English capitalists.
