Queer, Quaint Old San Antonio: Its Climate in Throat and Lung Diseases Page: 29
56 p. : ill., ports. ; 15 cm.View a full description of this book.
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to trade is of ai itinerallt ilatiure; whether onle watchlcs hi1 lollillg al)olut the wood alld hay
markets on his fragrant loads of mesquite, or )ustling about the plazas in the light of his own
lamps, onle finds ill him a fleeting, temporary colmmissariat. The MIexicano's environments
must shift easily; lie cannot abide frictional energy. (Granted him, however, a physical ease,
disdainfully ignored by the northerner, lie is suipIrisilng in his rapidity and adherence to nature,
which rank imitation is, after all, the best sort of originality. IHe works to great advain-
tage in gold and silver, his filigree curios being accounted most exquisite; his baskets and
table mats of the maguey plant are beautifully woven; his broad-briinmmed, peaked somblreros
are worth from fi \e to sixty dollars. Finest of all are his birds of glittering plumage and his
images in clay and glass, illustrative of fighting and robbing, stabl)ing the jungle beasts, fishing
and rendering. These figures are gelins of exactness; lie would no more thinkil of sending ouit a
market woman without veined cabbage, red beets and white-headed onions in a marvelous per-
fection of detail to the very fibres of the miniature basket, tllan he would think of a daily ablu-
tion. Now, before the great show windows of thle large bazaars, which are full of beautiful
articles, tired eves and tired brain will find alluny an hour of pleasant recreation.
But for any rounded valuation of Mexican life ill its entirety in San Antonio the stranger
must go to beggar-town, to that laughing, swearing, rollicking Bohelllia of /a(c/('.s. lThere oice
finds the Dore-tinted life ii all its swinlling routine of ruin, indolence, dirt and a redleeiminIg
philosophy, which dictates a smiling acceptance of life as it coiiimes. These are the people who
tllrollg the streets on Saturday (beggar day). 'Till children, blear-eyed hags and imiscllievouls
black-eyed boys are tapping at every door, brown pal mIs outstretched, the dancilig eves ,f tlie
young oines so)ered down to a politic pitifulness.
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Fisher, C. E. Queer, Quaint Old San Antonio: Its Climate in Throat and Lung Diseases, book, 1895; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143545/m1/33/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.