I mentioned the word “compadrazgo” a little way back.  The thing itself is curious, and quite novel to an Englishman of the present day.  The godfathers and godmothers of a child become, by their participation in the ceremony, relations to one another and to the priest who baptizes the child, and call one another ever afterwards compadre and comadre.  Just such a relationship was once expressed by the word “gossip,” “God-sib,” that is “akin in God.”  Gossip has quite degenerated from its old meaning, and even “sib,” though good English in Chaucer’s time, is now only to be found in provincial dialects; but in German “sipp” still means “kin.”

In Mexico this connexion obliges the compadres and comadres to hospitality and honesty and all sorts of good offices towards one another; and it is wonderful how conscientiously this obligation is kept to, even by people who have no conscience at all for the rest of the world.  A man who will cheat his own father or his own son will keep faith with his compadre.  To such an extent does this influence become mixed up with all sorts of affairs, and so important is it, that it is necessary to count it among the things that tend to alter the course of justice in the country.

The French have the words compere and commere; and it is curious to observe that the name of compere is given to the confederate of the juggler, who stands among the crowd, and slyly helps in the performance of the trick.

We went one day to the Hospital of San Lazaro.  I have mentioned the word “lepero” as applied to the poor and idle class of half-caste Mexicans.  It is only a term of reproach, exactly corresponding to the “lazzarone” of Naples, who resembles the Mexican lepers in his social condition, and whose name implies the same thing; for, of course, Saint Lazarus is the patron saint of lepers and foul beggars.  There are some few real lepers in Mexico, who are obliged by law to be shut up in this hospital.  We rather expected to see something like what one reads of the treatment of lepers which prevailed in Europe until a few years ago—­shutting them up in dismal dens cut off from communication with other human beings.  We were agreeably disappointed.  They were confined, it is true, but in a spacious building, with court-yard and garden; their nurses and attendants appeared to be very kind to them; and it seems that many charitable people come to visit the inmates, and bring them cigars and other small luxuries, to relieve the monotony of their dismal lives.  Some had their faces horribly distorted by the falling of the corners of the eyes and mouth, and the disappearance of the cartilage of the nose; and a few, in whom the disease had terminated in a sort of gangrene, were frightful objects, with their features scarcely distinguishable; but in the majority of cases the leprosy had caused a gradual disappearance of the ends of the fingers and toes,