Six years ago, in this space, I first introduced you to Rafael Delgado Lozano, the ubiquitous man of all work in TIME'S Mexico City news bureau, and described something of the life he leads there. TIME and Delgado met one spring morning on the Laredo Highway back in 1938. He was taking idle roadside bets as to whether the next U.S. automobile coming down the road would have crumpled fenders (about 50% of the cars showed signs of having smacked jaywalking cattle somewhere along the highway).

All bets were quickly forgotten when the driver of a car stopped, asked directions to a hotel in Mexico City and invited Delgado to show the way. He got in, directed the driver by a roundabout route while asking for a job as chauffeur during the visitors' stay. The visitors were a MARCH OF TIME crew. Delgado got a temporary job with them, proved himself so invaluable that he has been with TIME Inc. ever since.

Recently, Ralph, as TIME'S Mexico City bureau chiefs have invariably called him, made his first trip to Manhattan. On his return to more serene surroundings, he jotted down and sent along his impressions of his somewhat frantic visit. Wrote Delgado:

WHEN a Mexican from the high, easygoing plateau of Mexico City arrives in New York, he gets the feeling of someone entering a great factory where powerful machines making a tremendous noise are producing pieces of something at terrific speed (what, nobody knows). He sees trains up in the air, trains on the level and trains underground, all running under rigid schedule.

Coming from a land where a half-day doesn't mean anything, he finds that one minute means the loss of a very important train. Millions of automobiles and several thousand taxis cruise the city in all directions--everyone in a crazy race to get somewhere (where, nobody knows). Upper highways, level highways, underground highways, tunnels, bridges connecting island with cities, suburbs with suburbs, states with states--all with hundreds of signs: "Keep to the left . . . Pay toll here . . . Pay toll there . . . Stop . . . Slow . . . Minimum speed . . . Maximum speed . . .Traffic merging . . . Low clearance." Watch for this; watch for that; unlawful to do this; unlawful to do that--and millions of human beings gracefully obeying all of these signs!

The visitor gets in a taxi. "Click." Twenty-five cents to start with, and then 30-c-, 35-c-, 40-c-. A few blocks and it's a dollar. He gets out and pays the driver $1.10.

"Hey, Mac, what do I do with this dime?"

"What do you want, another dollar?"

"No, but why don't you travel in the subway. It's very cheap, honest, Mac."

Endless avenues--the tallest building in the world is here. The biggest theater in the world is there.

The greatest department store in the world over there. Signs by the millions: Smoke this . . . Good for you . . . Good for your stomach . . . Good for your hair . . . Millions of people walking and looking at those signs.

Five o'clock--the buildings erupt: "My train, my bus, my subway, my ferry. Got a dime? Lend me a dime. See you tomorrow. I got to hurry, I miss my train. What time is it?

Did you pay your income tax?"-Taxes: the federal tax, the state tax, the local tax; tax for this, tax for that . . . And the blondes. Thousands of blondes all over the place, beautiful blondes, beautifully dressed women.

"Let's have a drink. Want a Martini? Yes, a Martini and an oldfashioned. Give me a bourbon straight. Have another? Yes, another."

At last the hotel:

"Bell boy, can you please get me an aspirin?"

I am glad to say that Ralph has recovered from his tour, is now hard at work again in Mexico and listed on TIME'S masthead as the newest addition to our roster of full-time foreign correspondents.

Cordially yours,

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