The leading business thoroughfare, San Fran cisco Street. with its vont Mind ion. Cane de l'lnl(•r•o.c ( for the Pity still retains the bewilder ing of changing the name of the street every few• blocks). ennui-Ms the Plaza Mayor with the Alameda and reminds the visitor strongly of the fashionable shopping districts European Ifere shops with their costly displays of all sorts of merchandise, the best hotels, cafe's, and restaurants, the business offices and clubs, pour forth during the later afternoon hours their elegantly attired throngs that overflow the nar row sidewalks and fill the costly equipages and hackney coaches moving in a double line along the crowded street. San Francisco Street is in teresting any day, but it is doubly so when pro cessions of flower-bedecked carriages, columns of troops in showy uniform, and the gaily decorated fronts of the buildings. proclaim the celebration of the fiestas of September or of the ('inco de Mayo (Fifth of May). The name Chico de Mayo is also applied to the prin cipal rival of San Francisco street, and is borne a thoroughfare extending from the Cathedral the New National Theatre. As San Francisco street represents the business life of the city, so the Pasco de la Reforms is the highway of Mex ican social life. This beautiful drive, two miles in length, extends from the Alameda to the hill of Chapultepec. With its double avenue of fine trees, shading well-constructed stone sidewalks; its seven large circles, each 300 feet in diameter, some already surmounted with statuary of his toric interest, and others exhibiting a wealth of flowers and shrubbery; with its terminal parks of rare beauty in the midst of an architectural setting that each year becomes more imposing, it is no wonder that daily from five to seven o'clock the Paseo is the favorite parade ground for every Mexican who owns or can afford to hire an equipage. Along the line of handsome vehicles one occasionally detects a touch of do mestic color in the person of some caballero in native costume, but such appear with less fre quency as the years pass on, and the Mexican 'Vanity Fair' approximates more closely to the ordinary park processions of the great world centres.
A spot hardly second to the Paw() in interest is the beautiful park and promenade known as the .4 hiniede. With its 40 acres well shaded with poplar and beech trees and variegated with a most profuse collection of semi-tropical plants and shrubs, it has long been the favorite stamping ground of Mexican aristocracy, whose weekly parade on Sunday from eleven to one exhibits the fashionable life of the capital at its best. Here a fountain now stands on the site of the Quema dero or 'burning place' of the Inquisition, where many a heretic expiated his heresy at the behest of the then all-powerful Church, and had his ashes thrown into the ditch flowing behind the neighboring sanctuary of San Diego. The central Plaza de irmas or Plaza Mayor, surrounded by the magnificent Cathedral. the Palacio, the mu nicipal buildings, and sonic of the finest retail stores, seems more truly than any other spot the real centre of the city. It covers 14 acres and is beautified by trees. flower plots, statuary, and marble fountains, while in the centre is the charming band-stand which gives to it its popular name of •Zocalo.' At all times the centre of the commercial and political life of the metropolis, it is preiMiinently so for the patriotic celebra tions so dear to the heart of its populace. It is here, during the fiestas of September, that one can view the floral parade of the 14th; can listen to the charming military concerts of the 13th, and behold the gorgeous electric and pyrotechnic display that follows the eommemorative ring of the grito of Hidalgo; and on the 10th can per ceive in column after column of well-drilled troops on parade the mono facile (strong hand) of the modern ruler whose sway has been charac terized by peace and order.