CHAPTER XI

SOME PHASES OF SOCIAL LIFE

Here is a subject which every writer on the general life of a town or a country is expected to deal with, but in the case of Buenos Ayres one is reminded of the famous, “Story? Lord bless you, there’s none to tell, sir!” Save, that in being a civilised people, the inhabitants of the Argentine must needs dwell in communities, “social life,” as we understand it, is difficult to discover in these communities. Certainly, a teeming city of nearly a million and a half population, with crowded streets, palatial houses, theatres, lecture rooms, concert halls, restaurants, would seem to suggest possibilities of “social life”; but it happens to be a city mainly devoted to money-making, those who have already made their money maintaining a centre of social life somewhat remote from the Calle Florida; as far away, indeed, as the Bois de Boulogne and the Champs Élysées, for is not Paris the social Mecca of the successful Argentine?

Still they are few indeed thus privileged, in comparison with the multitude who have to make the best of things as they are in Buenos Ayres. Even during the terrible months of summer, those who can afford to fly from its stifling atmosphere to the rustic surroundings of the Hills of Córdoba, to the sea-washed shores of Mar del Plata, or to the still more attractive riverside suburbs of Montevideo, constitute a small section of the community.

There is, of course, an important section of the community who annually quit the city to pass the spring and summer months in the “Camp.” These are the _estancieros_, whose wealth comes entirely from their country estates, where life in the winter months declines to the nadir of dismal dulness and discomfort, so that they reside for some seven or eight months of the year in the city, and remove to the country for the warmer season, during which time the head of the family may inspect and revise the work that has been going on in his absence under the direction of his _mayordomo_, while the members of his family, (which may include what we would consider half-a-dozen separate “families,” as the patriarchal system of family life still obtains among the Argentines) will enjoy themselves in a variety of simple and healthy country pursuits. When residing in Buenos Ayres, the estancieros who have not placed their affairs entirely in the hands of estate agents, as is the custom with those who prefer to live in Paris, maintain offices and clerical staffs like any other business men, for the work of an Argentine _estancia_ entails a vast amount of organisation.

With the family life of the Argentines, however, I do not for the moment wish to concern myself, that being a subject of peculiar interest, which I purpose treating at some length in a later chapter. For the moment, my endeavour is only to register such evidences of the outward social life of the people as came within my range of observation during my stay in Buenos Ayres and my visits to different parts of the country. Conditions in the capital city differ, of course, in various ways, from those in the larger provincial towns, such as Rosario, Córdoba, and Mendoza, and still more widely from the life of the smaller rural communities; but we must always bear in mind in speaking of the Argentine that more than a fifth—and the most important fifth—of the entire population is concentrated in the capital, so that while London is not the embodiment of England, nor New York of the United States, Buenos Ayres does stand for Argentina.

In previous chapters I have expressed my feelings of surprise and disappointment at the unlooked-for dulness of the so-called “Paris of South America.” Never shall I forget the deadness of our first night in Buenos Ayres—a deadness that struck us like a nipping wind, chilling to the bone all hope of bright and entertaining evenings. It was an impression which the succeeding months, when we maintained a hungry and pathetic quest for social interest, did but little to remove. Perhaps it was due in some degree to the grossly exaggerated and misleading pictures of the city spread abroad by writers more intent on flattery and official patronage than on the simple narration of the truth. Almost alone among the many who have written on the life of Buenos Ayres, M. Jules Huret has ventured to hint at the appalling dulness of the social life and the lack of interest, especially for those of the younger generation.

The most vital factor in determining the social life of any community is, perhaps, the position of the womenfolk. In this respect, there is probably no city in the world on which so much has been written, yet concerning which the untravelled reader entertains more erroneous ideas. For this we have chiefly to thank the sensational journalism of Europe and North America, which, on the flimsiest of bases, has built up in the public mind the conception of Buenos Ayres as the metropolis of Vice, the world’s mart of the White Slave Traffic. Bearing in mind much of what has been written on this unsavoury topic, and more that is circulated world-wide in irresponsible gossip, the visitor might expect to find the outward conditions of New York, London and Paris reproduced on a many-times magnified scale. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are no large cities that I have visited in Europe or North America,—and I have visited most of them—outwardly so free of social offence as Buenos Ayres and the other great cities of South America. By comparison, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, even Washington and Philadelphia, would seem sinks of iniquity. Go to the races at Palermo, visit any theatre in Buenos Ayres, with two or perhaps three exceptions, dine at any of the few restaurants where a good meal is obtainable, wander the streets at any hour of the day or night, and you will never have a moment’s embarrassment from the social pest which obtrudes itself so flauntingly in New York or London. This is one of the few things they regulate better in Buenos Ayres. All places of public resort are barred to the _demi-mondaine_, and as she is officially known, this makes for a certain surface cleanliness of society, which is doubtless a delusion so far as the essential morals of the people are concerned, and may be written down an organised hypocrisy, but the outward evidences are as stated and not otherwise.

Furthermore, I know of no cleaner journalism than that of South America. Even the papers of the Anglo-Saxon world compare unfavourably in this respect; yes, those we deem highly “respectable”! One might expect to find among a Latin people something of the Continental levity in the treatment of this subject, but for propriety and sobriety, I do not believe it would be possible to better the journals, even of the lighter class, which are published in Buenos Ayres. They are almost absurdly respectable; the result, it may be, of a very obvious lack of humour in the people. A further consideration is the intense devotion of the Argentine to family life, and to family life of an almost Moorish exclusiveness, so that, with very few exceptions, almost any publication issuing in Buenos Ayres may safely pass from the hands of the parents into those of the youngest children.

This will be something of a revelation to many of my readers, but when I come to deal with “The Argentine at Home,” the factors which make for this outward cleanliness of social life will become apparent.

On the other hand, the position of the Argentine woman, which so vitally affects the social life of the country, corresponds in no way to Anglo-Saxon notions, and explains much of the dulness, artificiality, and insincerity it is my immediate business to describe. I remember very well reading in the pages of M. Huret’s admirable work _Del Plata á la Cordillera de los Andes_:

An Argentine assured me that, on meeting in the street a lady whom he had known in his youth, and whom he is entitled to address familiarly (_á la cual tutea_), he is careful not to stop and speak to her, lest in doing so he might compromise the lady.

Indeed, this Argentine informed the French writer that in such a case he preferred not to notice the lady at all, but to look away from her! Here, surely, is a suggestive fact. The statement seemed to me so remarkable that I raised the point with various Argentines, and always had it confirmed, one gentleman assuring me that he would not even go so far as to pause for a moment to speak in the street with his sister-in-law if she were unaccompanied. He thought it was an extremely foolish social custom but considered it was one to which every gentleman was bound to conform.

It will thus be seen at a glance that one form of social intercourse so familiar to us does not exist in the Argentine, which country is typical in this of almost all the South American Republics. How far this must condition the social life, any one can guess. The women are permitted some measure of freedom until they become engaged, and may, under strict chaperonage, attend formal receptions and balls, where the stiffest of starchy manners are _de rigueur_. But after marriage, they withdraw to the seclusion of their own homes and devote themselves to the care of their families, seldom taking part in any social gaieties, even going very little to the theatre.

One consequence of this is an extraordinary preponderance of men at all places of amusement. I am probably under-estimating the proportion when I say that in almost any audience, with the exception of that at the Teatro Colón, seventy-five per cent. would be men. More, I have often deemed it a pathetic commentary on the arid life of the place to enter one of the many cinematograph theatres and note the rows upon rows of men, with no more than a handful of women sprinkled among them. Often in an audience numbering probably five hundred, there would not be more than a dozen ladies and most of these foreigners. It is a condition of things that tends to perpetuate itself, as my wife, even with me at her side, always felt a little ill at ease where so few of her sex seemed to be expected, although, without exception, the entertainments might have been arranged for a party of Sunday-school children, especially if it contained a number of “Budges” who revelled in “bluggy” subjects, as hairbreadth escapes and the adventures of Nick Winter, Sherlock (often rendered “Shylock”) Holmes, and other preposterous “detectives” were the staple fare.

This tremendous overplus of men in the places of amusement admits of two explanations. First, we have the unusual social custom which allows of the husband acting as vicarious pleasure-seeker for wife and family, so that no Argentine lady complains when her husband goes out alone to the theatre and winds up the night at his club, returning long after she has been asleep! Secondly, we have to remember that in all cities populated chiefly by emigrants, large numbers of single men are to be encountered. It is the experience of business people in Buenos Ayres who employ considerable staffs, that a large proportion of their workers are youngish men who seem to be absolutely without family ties or attachments of any kind, lonely wanderers from the far lands of Europe.

A further influence militating against the womenkind enjoying such entertainment as is to be found in Buenos Ayres is the widespread area of the city. With a population not very much larger than half that of Paris, Buenos Ayres occupies vastly more space, owing to the system of one-story houses, which is still universal beyond the congested business area of the town. The tram service, one of the best regulated in the world, as it is also one of the cheapest, affords only a very inadequate means of communication between the further suburbs and the theatre district, in Maipú and Esmeralda, while the primitive state of the Suburban roadways make travel by coach, or taxicab, a hazardous and painful experience. So it happens that we find nowhere those bright and attractive supper restaurants with merry groups of pleasure-seekers, men and women, discussing the play they have just come from; but, in their place, many cafés, exclusively occupied by soft-hatted men smoking and drinking. The most pretentious restaurant in the city shuts its doors immediately after dinner, and even during dinner the ladies are always in an insignificant minority. Gaiety, forsooth! Who comes to look for that in Buenos Ayres has undertaken one of the most barren of pursuits.

As for the character of the resorts, little that is favourable can be said. I remember with what delight I used to scan the theatre advertisements in the columns of _La Prensa_ before I sailed for the River Plate, and what pleasures we promised ourselves, my wife and I, when the day’s work would be done! Places of amusement there are in abundance, and their advertisements make a brave showing in the newspapers, but there are rarely more than two, or it may be three, entertainments that are worthy of a visit. South America is the happy hunting ground of all sorts of incompetent Spanish actors and draggle-tailed Spanish dramatic companies. To see “The Merry Widow,” “Casta Susana,” or “The Count of Luxembourg” performed by a company destitute of vocal talent, with shabby, misfit scenery, and a wardrobe so poverty stricken that not a single actor wears a suit of his size (the whole company of them resembling, in evening dress, a scratch lot of waiters from a Soho chop-house), the orchestra clad in the motliest mixture of tweed suits, while the voice of the prompter, whose sweaty shirt sleeves obtrude from his ugly box in the fore-front of the stage, is heard above that of the actor—to witness this is by no means a delectable experience; yet such is the manner of the fare most frequently offered in the theatres of the city.

True, from time to time excellently organised Spanish and Italian companies do occupy the principal theatres, and once a year there is a visit from some eminent French actor, with a picked company, but on the whole dramatic entertainment is pitifully poor, the pieces being staged in a slovenly and inadequate style. The State-aided Opera, which has its home in the great Columbus Theatre, is, of course, a national institution, and as such plays a very important part in the social life of the richer classes, though the bulk of the people have never seen more than the outside of the building. Opera is here staged as perfectly as in the finest opera-houses of Europe, and not a few “stars” first twinkled in Buenos Ayres before their magnitude was recognised in London or Paris. On the strength of the Opera, Buenos Ayres enjoys the reputation of being a very musical city. In the _paraíso_, or gallery, you might discover a considerable number of Italians who had been attracted to the Colón out of a genuine delight in the performance, but in most other parts of the house, and most of all in the highly-priced boxes, the people are there to see each other: the ladies to study the dresses of the other ladies, the gentlemen to display in the persons of their wives and daughters the substantial condition of their banking accounts—or of their credit. Nay, even during the most dramatic parts of “Aïda,” “Manon Lescaut,” or “Otello,” I have seen quite as many ladies in the audience with their backs to the stage, chattering to friends, as there were others following the play. And in the _cazuela_ (a word which in domestic use signifies a stew, and theatrically a gallery reserved entirely for ladies—also something of a stew) the chattering between the fan-flapping occupants is so continuous that on a sudden lowering of the music one is sure to hear voices from the cazuela ringing out by contrast. For the rest, the Opera is a function conducted with the most tremendous gravity, and although the season is comparatively short (and usually unprofitable to the impresarios), it is not without its uses in enabling the native community to see a little more of each other than the restrictions of their social life would otherwise allow. To the stranger, however, it is socially useless, and to the mere lover of music who could appreciate the excellence of its representations, it is almost prohibitively expensive, unless he or she is brave enough to incur the odium of being “spotted” in the five shilling gallery or paraíso, where no English resident of any position in the town would condescend to ascend. The consequence is, you will seldom meet an English resident who has ever been to a performance in the Colón.

Of recent years, a movement in the direction of providing healthier entertainment of a varied description for the family circle on certain afternoons of the week, much after the style of the American vaudeville, has been growing. Thus, on Saturday and Sunday afternoons during our stay, one used to see many ladies and young children at the Casino, but at night it was the rarest thing to discover in the whole crowded theatre a respectable woman. Occasionally, an American or English lady ventured with her husband to one of the boxes, where it was possible to sit behind a screen and see the performance without being seen, but every seat in the pit, the circle, and the galleries was occupied by a man, and invariably there would be at least one turn that was highly objectionable, and rendered the more so by the conduct of the audience, who, slow to respond to anything which the Anglo-Saxon mind recognises as humour, have an ever-ready nose for suggestiveness, and when that is forthcoming, do not merely laugh at it, but render it the more offensive by uttering all sorts of obscene noises.

The Casino, the Theatre Royal, the Scala, and the Parisiana, during my stay, whatever may be the case now, were the evening haunts of the younger men. The first named was the only one that attempted anything like vaudeville entertainment, the majority of the _artistes_ being usually American or English, and the difficulty of maintaining a programme was so great that the management had to content themselves with what they could get in the shape of second- and third-rate “turns” from overseas, so that often the variety was not remarkable, two or three groups of comic acrobats being included in one programme, and we all know that there is no variety in comic acrobats. The other three resorts were deplorable imitations of the Parisian houses that specialise in _revues_. With the exception of the Casino, these theatres were all so small that they would not have been considered suitable in America for more than lecture rooms or “picture” halls. The revues were usually so stupid, the scenery so contemptible, the performers so inferior, that I always felt sorry the audience had nothing better to do than waste their time in such inanity. French was the language of the revues, with occasional Spanish songs and interludes, and there was only one joke which seemed to have a universal appeal—some reference to “606.” Examples: A miserable youth comes on to visit a burlesque doctor. He begins explaining how he had met a young lady in a restaurant, using words of the most suggestive character, each sentence containing a pun on a number. “Ah,” says the doctor, “your case must be treated arithmetically.” As the patient proceeds with his tale, the doctor seizes on every punning phrase containing a number, jots these down on a slate, adds the lot up, result 909; but reversing the slate he exhibits to the audience “606.” Then there is feeble laughter of fools! Or a young lady has a song of the telephone, and the refrain is “Please give me number 606.” Faugh! But the spectacle of an English acrobat on the Casino stage, dressed as a Highlandman, who at certain times pulled a string that raised the back part of his kilt and displayed “606” painted on the seat of his “shorts” filled me with disgust. (Perhaps it should be explained that “606” is a cure for syphilis.)

The music in these revues usually consisted of a _rechauffé_ of such up-to-date tunes as “Ta, ra, ra, boom de ay!” “A Bicycle Built for Two,” “There are nice girls everywhere,” and many others that have run their little day in the “halls” of New York and London. In a word, anything more despicable in the matter of entertainment could not be conceived, yet in these poor, pitiful play-houses the young men and older bucks of Buenos Ayres were supposed to be “seeing life.”

At one of the theatres mentioned, a group of fourteen English girls were employed as dancers and singers practically all the time I stayed in Buenos Ayres. They would certainly have found the greatest difficulty in earning a livelihood in the same way in their own land, and it made me sad to hear their poor thin voices uttering some drivel about “coons” and “moons” which to me was only partially intelligible in my native language, and must have been so much meaningless rubbish to the majority of the audience. The few painted ladies who frequented those places in the evenings were a sorrowful group of regular attenders, admitted, I believe, at half price, and gave the final touch of squalid meanness to the scene.

So much for the “gaiety” of Buenos Ayres! The reader will probably now begin to realise what an attractive place it is for the young American or Britisher. Poor young man, there is no one for whom I feel more pity. He is at his wits’ end for wholesome amusement after business hours, and his case is even worse than that of the young Frenchman or the Spaniard, who can occasionally, at least, enjoy some reasonably good performance in his native tongue, for English dramatic companies cannot possibly find sufficient support to warrant the expense of the long voyage out and back. When I come to deal with the life of the British community, I shall describe the straits they are put to for social amusement and distraction, and the ingenuity with which they contrive to render their lives a little less unpleasant than circumstances conspire to make them. But in the general social life of the town, the English take little or no part, keeping to themselves with their usual exclusiveness, rendered the greater here by the almost impenetrable barrier which the _criollos_, or older native families present to all advances from without.

In this regard, the British are not singular, as the French, German, Spanish, Italian, and other nationalities all maintain in a very marked degree their racial sympathies, although assimilating more quickly with the native element in the matter of language, which remains the great stumbling block of the Anglo-Saxons. Each community maintains its own clubs, with many sub-divisions among Italians and Spaniards, the Neapolitans, for instance, having their meeting-places apart from other Italians—indeed most decent Italians refuse to recognise the Neapolitans as fellow-countrymen—and, among Spaniards, the Asturians especially maintaining their local patriotism and racial interests in this way. These clubs, almost innumerable, afford the men a common meeting place to discuss their fortunes in the new land of promise and to recall their old days at home, and as the social side of them includes frequent concerts, banquets, and balls, the women of the company have also opportunities for appearing in their best clothes and seeing photographs of themselves in groups published in _Caras y Caretas_, the principal illustrated weekly, whose every issue contains a large number of such items.

The social side of journalism is even more highly developed in Buenos Ayres and in South America generally than in North America, so that one judging only by the newspapers and the illustrated periodicals might suppose there was nowhere in the world such sociability as in these Latin Republics. In Buenos Ayres and in Montevideo elaborate _guías sociales_ are published annually, containing lists of “At-home Days” and other information of a personal character, while _La Prensa_, _La Nacion_, _El Diario_, and all the other newspapers devote whole columns daily to the movements of the local nobodies. No possible occasion for a _banquete_ is allowed to pass, and to the English reader _Caras y Caretas_ is a weekly joy, with its dozens of photographs of these quaint little functions.

Señor Don Alonso Moreno Martínez (let us say) is going to Rio de Janeiro on business for two or three weeks. The friends of Don Alonso thereupon ask him to dine with them at the Sportsman Restaurant, where, in two hours’ time, they will demolish a quite eatable dinner of five or six courses. Meanwhile, one of the ten or fifteen hosts of Don Alonso has taken care to warn the photographer of _Caras y Caretas_, of _Fray Mocho_, and perhaps of _P. B. T._, and these three photographers turn up in the course of the two hours, make flashlight photographs of the little handful of diners, none of whom will be in evening dress, the group presenting the oddest assortment of clothes, and, behold, in the next issues of these widely circulated periodicals, excellent reproductions of the said photographs, inscribed: “Banquet offered by his friends to Señor Don Alonso Moreno Martínez, in view of his departure for Rio de Janeiro, where he will absent himself for a few weeks on affairs of importance.” It is no exaggeration to say that thousands of these photographs are published yearly in the pictorial press, and when the honoured guest is a little more important than my imaginary Don Alonso, then the big daily newspapers are pleased to publish the photograph, while the provinces send up to Buenos Ayres scores of them every week. It is all very pathetic, but very eloquent of the low level of social interest.

Even the Races, so important an institution in Buenos Ayres, are conducted in a way that almost entirely eliminates the social element. Among the vast crowd that frequent the splendid course at Palermo on Thursday and Sunday afternoons, except in the enclosure belonging to the Jockey Club, very few women are to be seen. The men are there in mobs, not to enjoy the races, in which they take no genuine sportive interest, but in the hope of making a bit of money. An American lady said to me she had never been at so quiet a demonstration before; she considered King Edward’s funeral was altogether a livelier ceremony! The undemonstrative character of the people is, to us supposedly phlegmatic Anglo-Saxons, really extraordinary. I have an impression that it arises from an inborn laziness of character which is not altogether foreign to their nature. They are chary of giving applause in the theatre, and they sit dull and motionless before the most exciting films in the picture palaces. At the Races there is a feeling of sullen determination to get back twenty pesos or more for the two they have speculated.

With all this lack of wholesome interest in life, outside the brute struggle for the dollar, it is not surprising that there should be a widespread devotion to gambling and the card table, most of the social centres already mentioned being also resorts of gamblers. And with all its veneer of socialness, there is no genuine public spirit throughout the heterogeneous community. In a minor way this was illustrated in February of 1913, when, owing to certain regulations which the Chancellor of the Exchequer imposed upon the shops selling drugs and perfumes, some 1,340 hairdressers and about 400 drugshops declared themselves “on strike” by temporarily closing their premises, to the serious inconvenience of the invalids and the dandies. The action drew forth the strongest denunciation of the Press for its anti-humanitarian character, but I noticed that quite as much sympathy was expressed with the male population who would thus be placed under the painful necessity of shaving themselves for a day or two, as with the suffering humanity whose need for medicine makes the druggist’s one of the most successful businesses in the city.

There is truly little humanitarian feeling evident in the social life of Buenos Ayres, although the organisation of the _Asistencia pública_ is in every respect admirable and its first aid to the injured and the sick leaves nothing to be desired. The Hospital organisation into whose care the patient passes after leaving the hands of the Asistencia is by no means so well conducted, so that while you may rely on being taken to a hospital in the best possible way, Heaven help you after you have been left there! While it is true that the Argentine is far in advance of most of the other republics in its provisions for public vaccination, and also in its sane policy of making vaccination compulsory, the official treatment of disease always seemed to me to suggest a nervous dread of the possibilities, a feverish readiness to test all the latest European innovations for its suppression. The memory of past plagues is a potent factor in this; recollections and traditions of the devastations wrought in Buenos Ayres by Yellow Jack a generation ago do much to spread the nervousness when there is any whisper of epidemics in other South American ports.

January 29, 1913, was the second anniversary of the first great epidemic of yellow fever that decimated the population of Buenos Ayres, and the anniversary coincided with an outbreak of bubonic plague in the northern city of Tucumán. The occasion was seized by the very competent and vigorous writer of “Topics of the Day” in the Buenos Ayres _Standard_ to deliver an excellent homily on “Disease as a Hygienist.” From this I quote a few passages which I think worthy of attention, coming as they do from the pen of an outspoken local critic:

Unfortunately government as an art is not understood to include or embrace hygiene. Politics concern themselves only with the passions of the people, and the detriment thereof. The oft-quoted tag: “the health (_sic_) of the people is the supreme law,” is remembered only when an orator is anxious to display his erudition, or when he feels in a particularly cynical mood. The “supreme law,” as every one knows, is to get what you can, when you can, how you can, but get it!

Not merely in the Provinces is hygiene neglected. The big cities are great culprits in this matter. Some years ago the city of Rosario was visited by bubonic plague. Instantly it was placed in a state of siege. Trains from outside were not allowed to enter, nor were passengers allowed to leave without “a thorough disinfection.” They and their luggage were submitted to the process, which gave them a disagreeable odour, but, unfortunately, gave immunity to no one. The outbreak was, as a matter of fact, too benevolent to cause wide alarm in Rosario, but it had a wonderful influence in stimulating the city authorities. As if by some enchantment, the old fœtid system of cesspools in the centre of the city was done away with and modern sanitation installed. Legions of homeless dogs were summarily caught and mercifully asphyxiated. The vigorous broom of reform was wielded unceasingly for a few months, and Rosario smelled sweeter in consequence. But much still remains to be done in Rosario. In Buenos Ayres the old problem of sanitation is now in course of solution, a comprehensive and stupendous scheme being in course of execution. Still there are places in the outskirts that would serve as nurseries for exotic disease-germs. Unfortunately, too, the _conventillos_ are full of children and adults predisposed by heredity, by malnutrition and unwholesome surroundings, to fall victims to, and propagate, any passing epidemic....

The fact is, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a city, town or village in Argentina that can boast of adequate sanitary arrangements. The smaller the place the greater the problem. But to listen to Argentine orators, in Congress or out of Congress, it might be thought that this country had absolutely nothing to worry about but the unsatisfactory political conditions of the Provinces and the country. Whole sessions are devoted to a sterile debate upon the alleged covert intervention of the National authorities in the mean and pettifogging “politics” of the Provinces. But never a word about the squalor that is endemic in the cities and towns of these politician-ridden, quasi-autonomous States. Should Nemesis come along she will exact heavy retribution for culpable loss of time and opportunity, sacrificed in order that glib orators may air their ineffective gifts.

Clearly social hygiene is not yet a strong point in the Argentine, where 62 per cent. of deaths among children born in the country are due to malnutrition and errors of diet. Think of the folly of it! A land clamouring for population, inviting immigrants of all races, yet allowing a high percentage of its new-born citizens to perish owing to the lack of humanitarianism in its social system. The life of the individual is valued lightly in the Argentine and in any sort of society where the welfare of the component atoms is deemed of no importance, the basis upon which to rear the fabric of social well-being is insecure.

As an illustration of the poor stuff out of which the social life of Buenos Ayres has to be constructed, note the following, which I reprint from the Buenos Ayres _Standard_:

“Those who live in glass houses should pull the blinds down” is an old axiom worth keeping in mind. Although not exactly a glass house, there is a hotel in Calle Cangallo. A bedroom in the ground floor has two large windows fronting the street. Last night both these windows were surrounded by an admiring crowd. An Englishman who happened to pass naturally stopped to look at the attraction. This consisted of a young and exceedingly pretty woman who had “divested” herself and got into bed, quite oblivious of the fact that the _persianas_ (lattice shutters) were wide open. The evening was warm, and as she slept the sleep of the just, she exhibited even more of the human form divine than would be considered discreet by a classical dancer. The admiring crowd freely criticised the sleeping beauty and made no attempt whatever to arouse her to a sense of her position. Our English friend promptly entered the hotel, explained matters, and a maid promptly entering the room switched off the light, to the accompaniment of a chorus of groans from those who stood without.

The lax organisation of the police is largely to blame for the lack of social sweetness throughout the Argentine. The officials of the force embrace every type of mankind from honest devoted servants of the public to the lowest of “grafters” and murderers. They are constantly swaying between excess of zeal and absolute indifference, or active participation in criminality. Here is a typical case as reported in the daily press:

The Buenos Ayres 17th police have been accused of a serious abuse of authority. According to the accusers, a young couple engaged to be married were arrested in the Plaza Francia because they were seated on a bench talking. Conveyed to the _comisaría_, the two prisoners were confined in separate rooms, and one of the two police officials, it is alleged, assaulted the young woman in a most cowardly and repulsive manner. The case has been referred to the Chief of Police.

That is all I ever heard of the matter. Almost daily all sorts of police scandals come to light in the press, show their ugly heads for a moment, as it were, then slip out of sight, “no more being heard of the matter.”

A similar case to that just quoted came to my knowledge, in which two Gringos figured unhappily. A young lady arrived from England to marry her sweetheart, who was employed in Buenos Ayres. On the second night of her arrival, they strolled to the Plaza San Martín, and, forgetful of the strange amenities of local society, behaved in the “spoony” fashion of a loving couple in a London park. They were promptly arrested and passed the rest of the night in prison. The creature who would arrest them might be a half-breed Indian, himself capable of any crime, but not understanding that Gringos are accustomed to do their love-making in the open!

Quaintly enough, the police are often the ravishers of helpless women. Once during our stay a young woman was forcibly taken by two men in a taxicab to the woods at Palermo and there criminally assaulted by them, while a _vigilante_ “kept the coast clear.” The men then decamped, and the zealous agent of Argentine law himself committed a further criminal assault on the unfortunate woman. The police have even been known—though this predated our stay in the town—to seize a woman in the street, conduct her to a house and assault her!

With the police as active agents in wrong-doing, the social life of the country could not be other than it is. Nay, when one has listened to many stories of official turpitude, the surprise is that so much approximating to modern civilised conditions should be able to survive in the Argentine. Although probably more in place in my chapter on the Emigrants, I am tempted to relate here, for the lurid light it throws on certain sections of Argentine society, one of several stories told to me by an Italian doctor, who had practised for some twelve years, first in a provincial town and afterwards in the Federal capital.

A countryman of his came to the Argentine, with his young wife and infant daughter. In Italy he had been a small market-gardener, and in the new Land of Promise he started in a humble way as a cultivator of potatoes and vegetables near a country town some thirty-five miles from Buenos Ayres. Modest prosperity attended his efforts, and in their rudely built and sparely furnished little _rancho_, the couple lived happily and contentedly with their little daughter. Some years of increasing prosperity passed in this way, and the Italian was able to acquire a little more land. Meanwhile, a slight friendship had sprung up between him and the local _comisario_, who, in riding past, would occasionally dismount and enter the rancho, or take a seat in the shade of the rude verandah, to share a bottle of wine with the Italian and his wife. Indeed, the story as told to me by the doctor, with the warm, imaginative touch which the Italian imports from his native tongue into the Spanish, was quite idyllic up to this point, but here enters the element of tragedy.

It so happened that the young wife, her husband’s junior by some eight or ten years, was even more beautiful than the average woman of her class, admittedly the most beautiful of peasant women. At first the Italian was flattered by the friendship of the police officer, whose good-will it was desirable to retain, if all sorts of oppressive restrictions hampering the development of the _ranchero’s_ work were to be avoided—but later, he began to wonder whether this friendship sprang entirely from good feeling towards himself, or whether the comisario was casting an envious eye upon the young wife. Suddenly awakened to the possibilities of this, and being, in common with most of his race, a man of passionate nature, the Italian forthwith determined to remove from the district to some place where he hoped his wife might be free from any possible persecution and he from being tempted to the usual extreme of the Italian husband whose honour has been assailed.

Selling his plots and belongings for much less than he might have secured had he cared to wait a favourable offer, he removed some forty miles away, leaving no clue as to his address. In this new locality he acquired a similar piece of land, set about the erection of a new rancho and the preparation of his soil. Here he opined his wife would at least be safe from the attentions of the official, and he determined he would exercise greater care in preventing the comisario of the new district from setting eyes on her, for he had now realised, what all his countrymen in the Argentine come speedily to understand, that a good-looking wife is one of the most dangerous possessions an emigrant can take with him to the new land. Quietly the couple went about their business for a time, the wife actively assisting in the work of the little farm. The shadow of the evil comisario seemed to have passed. But it was not so. Annoyed at being baulked of his prey, that ruffian had carefully followed up the disappearance of the Italian couple and traced them to their new place of abode. This he managed by the simple process of sending out an official description to all the surrounding _comisarías_, describing the couple and asking for news of them to be forwarded to him, as though they were fugitives from justice! And so it happened that, after a few more months of peaceful industry, the Italian was horrified one day to see his wife’s persecutor riding down the main street of the town, in company with the local chief of police. Scenting evil afoot, he hastened home to warn his wife, and make preparations for eventualities.

That very evening the comisario, accompanied by a local vigilante, called at the house and demanded admission, declaring they held an order for the arrest of the Italian. The latter’s response was to discharge a revolver point blank at the police agent, whom he grievously wounded,—the officer keeping out of range. The latter then withdrew, only to return with two more agents, and several roughs from a neighbouring café. Acting on his instructions, the gang attacked the house, the two vigilantes being killed by the Italian before he was overpowered and bound to the rough wooden posts of the inner wall. The comisario and the scoundrels who accompanied him now criminally assaulted the young wife and daughter before the eyes of the helpless man, and eventually left, carrying away with them the mother and child, only when the outraged husband seemed to have been rendered raving mad.

Later, several agents were sent from the local comisaría to remove the now almost lifeless Italian, who had been seriously injured in the mêlée and crippled for life owing to the wanton brutality of those who broke into his rancho. He was lodged in jail, and after many months was tried and sentenced to some five years’ imprisonment for the shooting of the two agents sent to arrest him. Surviving the prison ordeal, he was eventually released, though crippled, beggared, and hopeless. But the Italian spirit of revenge burned fiercely within his shattered frame, and obtaining one of the deadly stilettos with which his countrymen are all too familiar, within a few months of regaining his freedom, he succeeded, in the most dramatic manner, in killing not only the comisario who had worked such havoc with his life, but also the brother officer who had so callously aided and abetted him. The one he despatched in a café; the other in his private room at the police station, allowing himself to be arrested immediately thereafter. Of his ultimate fate the Italian doctor could not speak, but he assured me the facts were as stated, and that the man was personally known to him. Nor did he know what sinister fate befell the wife and daughter. Such is one of the little tragedies of the Argentine, and one that I have been assured by those who know is typical of numberless unwritten chapters in its social life.

It may be objected that the killing of the officer in a restaurant and being able to escape to a distant town and kill another, seems improbable; but this you will understand when you know what happens in the event of a public murder in the Argentine. I remember walking along Calle Maipú, in Buenos Ayres, soon after my arrival, when suddenly seven or eight people bolted out of a small café, the entrance to which was down some steps, and whence came the screams of a woman. Presently two policemen came hurrying along and disappeared within. Everybody near the scene took care to avoid the immediate vicinity of the café, lest he might be arrested as a witness! What had happened was this. A man had been shot dead, and his body was lying in the café, where only an old woman who attended the bar remained, every one who had been in the place at the time of the murder incontinently bolted. And well for them that they did so, as it is the custom of the police to make indiscriminate arrests of witnesses in the neighbourhood of any crime that has been committed, and these helpless witnesses are lodged in gaol and treated with greater rigour than the perpetrator of the deed! So notorious is this ludicrous procedure, that there is a saying in Buenos Ayres, “It is better to be a murderer than a witness,” and consequently an enormous number of crimes pass unpunished for the simple reason that no one who values his personal safety cares to come forward as a witness.

The nature of the crimes perpetrated daily throughout Argentina is such that the Anglo-Saxon mind revolts at the mere thought of human beings existing who could be guilty of such enormities. But it is only fair to say that in these crimes of passion and violence, the native Argentine is seldom involved, the lower class Italian, and especially the Neapolitan, being the worst offender. Indeed the Italian doctor who told me the story related above was careful to explain that neither of the comisarios who played such villainous parts were Argentines of pure descent, but were Spanish-Italians. One has only to note the names of the persons concerned in the cases reported in the Press to realise that Italy, and especially that hotbed of vice and criminality of which Naples is the centre, is responsible for the largest percentage of the inhuman outrages that stain the records of the Argentine.

As I have hinted, the Gringo who gets himself involved in any sort of dispute with the police is likely to regret it. The only safe course is to avoid at all costs the intervention of the legal authorities. When one must go to law, then care must be taken to ensure the proper course of justice, either by judicious bribery or personal influence! I have known of cases in the United States where it has been necessary “to purchase justice,” particularly one important judgment which was only placed beyond doubt by liberally feeing the judges. Similarly, the honest man who meekly sits down, and out of his unworldliness allows “justice” to take its course in the Argentine, without doing something to help it along, may live to regret his scrupulousness.

An English acquaintance whose sense of justice is so abnormally developed that he would go to law about the most trumpery matter rather than submit to what he felt to be an injustice, one morning had to make some calls in Buenos Ayres, and, hailing a coach from the rank in front of the hotel, he drove to his first appointment, a matter of some ten minutes, asking the driver—an Italian—to wait for him at a certain point a few hundred yards distant, where coaches were permitted to stand. But after discharging his business and going to the place in question, he could not find the coach. The driver had evidently accepted another fare, hoping to get back in time for my friend. But, behold him at the hotel in the evening, demanding payment of fifteen or sixteen pesos, on the ground that he had waited several hours for the return of the traveller, and only gave up hope of his coming back when it was nearing dinner time! The Englishman declined to disgorge six or seven dollars for his ten minutes’ coach drive, and offered two pesos, exactly double the amount he had legally incurred up to the time of leaving the coach, and thus allowing for the time he had ordered the coachman to wait. This the man indignantly refused, quitting the hotel with vows of vengeance on the Englishman who, by the way, had only a smattering of the language, or sufficient to indicate in a crude and gesticulative manner what he required.

Next morning, or it may have been the next again, when walking along the Calle Florida, our Gringo was surprised to find himself stopped by a policeman, with whom was the cochero, and requested to accompany them to the comisaría. He gave the agente to understand, as well as he could by gesture and some of his odd Spanish words, that he would go with him in a coach, but would not be taken on foot through the streets. Eventually this was agreed to, and thus they reached the police station, where some hours passed before the magistrate could or would inquire into the case.

In vain did the prisoner claim permission to communicate with the British Minister, and when at length he was brought before the judge, it was clear that gentleman had made up his mind on the story already told by the cabman, which was naturally a tissue of lies. A request for an interpreter was at first refused, the magistrate saying he believed the Gringo understood well enough what was being said to and about him, but on continued protest, an interpreter was called, and he made it his first business to interpret nothing said either by the magistrate or by the accused, but advised the latter to pay up and get out of the court at once. Mr. Gringo, being a particularly stiff-necked British type, insisted that having incurred the trouble of being arrested, he would not now pay one centavo more than he had offered the cochero at the hotel, and demanded that his side of the case should be fully interpreted to the magistrate. Even this seemed to make no impression on the enlightened administrator of the law, who stated that the simple fact remained that the coachman had been engaged and had not been discharged, and that evidently the accused had not taken sufficient pains to make sure that the coachman was not waiting for him at the appointed time and place, the prosecutor producing a lying witness who swore to seeing him at the appointed place and at the time stated.

At this juncture the Englishman again in the most emphatic way instructed the interpreter to insist on having the case adjourned until he could have time to communicate with the British Minister, as he was willing even to run the risk of a night in jail rather than accede to any order of Court that seemed to him unjust. His request was again dismissed as irrelevant, the matter being one entirely for the consideration of the police judge. Then, suddenly recollecting that at the moment of his arrest he was on the way to visit a very influential Argentine with whom he had business relations, and who took a prominent part in local politics, he suggested that he be permitted to communicate with this gentleman. When the judge heard the name of this gentleman pronounced, and realised he might be a friend of the accused, the whole complexion of the case instantly changed, and instead of passing judgment for the payment of the coachman’s claim, as he had originally shown a readiness to do, he calmly asked the accused why he had not mentioned before that he was a friend of Señor Fulano de Tal, and the matter could have been arranged immediately. Moreover, he would not even allow that the coachman was entitled to more than one peso, his minimum fare for the ride from the hotel to the place at which the Englishman left the coach!

So dumbfoundered was the plaintiff at this sudden change of front that he burst into a volley of oaths against the Gringo and also insulted the judge, who forthwith clapped him into jail to cool off for the next three days!

Our friend, not a little satisfied with the turn of events, was thereupon liberated, with no worse loss than that of some four or five hours’ time, and the expenditure of a certain amount of nervous anxiety. But that was not the end of the matter. The cochero, having spent a few pesos by way of bribes anticipatory, had ample time in the next three days to nurse his wrath to scalding point, and the Englishman was advised, in view of this, to be very careful of his movements after these three days had passed, as it was a matter that might be settled in the approved manner of the Italian—at the point of the stiletto.

It so happened that five days after the court scene, the Englishman was due to sail for England, and during the days following the prisoner’s release he practically never left the hotel, even taking the precaution of having his luggage conveyed to the boat by another traveller, to throw the coachman off the scent, if perchance he was lurking about, seeking vengeance. Then when ready to leave, a friend engaged a taxicab and drove up in it to the kitchen entrance of the hotel, the Englishman jumping in instantly. Thus he succeeded in eluding the ruffian, but he actually saw him arrive at the quayside just when the visitors were being turned off the vessel.

The simple narration of this episode can give but faint idea of the anxiety and inconvenience it must have caused to the English traveller, and it is to be doubted whether in the end he was the gainer. My own policy was invariably to submit to any sort of injustice when I could not see an immediate likelihood of successfully protesting against it. The line of least resistance is certainly the only policy in the Argentine that makes for comfort and peace of mind.

The practice of indiscriminately thrusting people into jail and leaving them there for several days, in the vilest conditions and often in a common room with the most desperate characters, before inquiring into their cases, had one solitary merit, and, as the Irishman said, even that was a bad one. In every motor accident that takes place—and there are many daily—the first thing the policeman does is to march the chauffeur off to jail, and have the car removed afterwards. It is a matter of complete indifference to the police whether the accident is the fault of the chauffeur or not—off he goes to jail and there he may lie for several days before he is discharged. As it would be difficult to discover more reckless drivers than those who make pandemonium of the streets of Buenos Ayres, this struck me as not entirely a bad method. To assume the guilt of the motor-driver until he had proved his innocence was, in nine cases out of ten, to take the proper course. Some English acquaintances of mine, however, who kept an automobile and employed a very considerate and cool-headed Englishman as driver, were unable to agree with me, as their man had just spent three days in jail for a slight accident, in which a careless passenger had injured his foot by stepping off the pavement against the wheel of the car, and owing to the verminous condition of the jail, the poor chauffeur had to destroy all his clothes after he was liberated! My friends also had to suffer inconvenience owing to their car being abandoned in the street by the arrest of the driver, and being held by the police for a day or two before it was delivered to them, sustaining in the meantime some damage. The only moral of this story is that Buenos Ayres is no place for an English chauffeur!

But of course it is easy to be critical of the social conditions of a country which, after all, has no more than emerged from somewhat primitive conditions into the larger life of a great modern nation. The Spanish civilisation in America was not in every way superior to the native civilisations it destroyed and supplanted, and for generations it made but little progress of itself, if anything deteriorating as the inevitable consequence of its low and brutalising aim—the securing of treasure for the Spanish Crown. The Spanish communities established throughout the continent were notoriously lacking in ideals. Until they threw off the yoke of Spain and began to feel within themselves the stirring of national aspirations, to cherish ambitions of elevating themselves into individual nations, their history went some way to justify the famous cynicism that the true dividing line between Africa and Europe are not the Straits of Gibraltar, but the Pyrenees.

No longer, however, can it be said that any of these virile young peoples are without their ideals. If the Argentine citizen had no other figure than the splendid one of Sarmiento to point to, he would still be justified in claiming for his country a place among the intellectual nations of our time. And Sarmiento is but one of many great men whom the Argentine has produced.

There is everywhere in South America to-day an unmistakable reaching out for better things. Alongside the sheer brutality, unhappily still existing, the tender plant of intellectual culture has been growing, and with it true humanitarianism must make progress. It is, however, the defect of virtue ever to be less interesting than vice; not only in the Argentine, but also among ourselves, the baser elements of society have a knack of thrusting themselves in front of the worthier, so that the observer is liable to get his perspective askew. That is why it is easy to overestimate the importance of these baser elements of Argentine social life, though not to overdraw the picture of actual conditions. It may fairly be said that the baser elements of social life touch a higher percentage of the whole in the Latin-American civilisation of to-day than in that of Europe or North America, but that the more elevating factors are present and, if less in degree, are similar in kind to those of the older nations, and will eventually produce a worthy social system, in which intellectualism and humanitarianism will triumph over the brute forces of self-seeking and indifferentism. But the time is not yet.

The Argentine is credited with expending more on the education of its people than any other country in the world, with the exception of Australia, and if the truth must be told, it is not getting the best value for its expenditure. Since the days when Sarmiento,—who took part in the insurrection against the notorious Rosas in 1829, and some twenty years later had a hand in overthrowing that _gaucho_ tyrant,—established in 1856, the first department of public education, the public schools of the Argentine have been regarded as one of the first considerations of every statesman. Sarmiento spent his life in the cause of education, which he had studied in the United States and in Europe before rising to power in his native land, and during his presidency he achieved great things in the founding of schools and colleges throughout the country.

A visitor to Buenos Ayres, and especially if he be one of official distinction in his own country, will be shown some most admirable educational institutions in the federal capital, and among these the splendid Colegio Sarmiento, which perpetuates the memory of the wisest and most humane of Argentine presidents. So far good, but he will not be told, especially if he be under official guidance, that probably the school teachers throughout the country are four, five, or six months in arrears with their salaries, the appropriation for public education having somehow fallen short of the requirements. Just as an immense amount of the corruption and criminality among the police is due directly to the infamously low rate of remuneration, which in 1912 was practically the same as it had been some fifteen or twenty years before, though the cost of living had meanwhile doubled, if not trebled, so is school-teaching rendered one of the most despicable of callings by reason of the shamefully low wages paid to those engaged in it. In a country where the commonest forms of manual labour are highly rewarded, the rank and file of teachers are not so well paid as they are in the United States or in England, and thus, in financial standing, fall into the meanest class of workers. Nay, it is by no means unusual for their wretched salaries to be as much as six months in arrears, and in any case the average teacher seldom has the satisfaction of handling his or her income, owing to a check system worked under the immediate auspices of the Educational Department itself.

The school teacher, being quite without resources and living from hand to mouth, wishes to buy, let us say, a sewing machine for his wife, or some household necessity. He obtains this on the instalment system, and the Educational Department becomes his _fiador_, or guarantor, for the transaction. It does more; it actually pays the instalments and marks them off against his salary! In such wise many teachers do all their shopping, even to the purchase of their eatables, and rarely have the satisfaction of handling their actual salaries. No wonder that the poor pedagogue, who ought to be the hope of his country, is more often despised and contemned for his inability to acquire money in a country where the possession of it is the sole measure of a man’s ability.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there is a genuine desire for knowledge among the Argentine people to-day, a willingness to be instructed, only second to that of the North American, whose advanced ideals of education first fired Sarmiento to emulation. The works of an informative character sold in the bookshops would, I am confident, greatly outnumber those of light reading, were statistics available. There is throughout the Press the same evidence of a serious interest in subjects which in England would be considered “heavy” or “dull.” In a word, the good Argentine is a man very much in earnest, given to pondering the problems of life in the light of the best criticism he can find, and if he is still overshadowed by his worser compatriots, he is by no means a negligible quantity, nor is he rarely to be met with.

In many ways the country seems to be passing through much the same social development as the history of the United States presents, always remembering, however, that it is based on a civilisation that differs radically from the Anglo-Saxon. A further evidence of this is the extraordinary popularity of the lecture as an instrument of education. In the course of a single year, the procession of lecturers who invade Buenos Ayres assumes proportions that are almost comic. Not a week passes but the newspapers herald the coming of some European celebrity, whose portrait is published broadcast, whose life is written up in every journal, and whose lectures (for which a high fee is usually charged) are pretty sure to be well attended. The subjects on which these lecturers discourse are often of the most forbidding seriousness, and only people famishing for knowledge, or utterly at a loss otherwise to dispose of their time, could provide audiences for them. These _conferencistas_ come indiscriminately from France, Spain, and Italy, the languages of these countries being so widely represented in the Argentine that a gathering capable of understanding any or all of them is not difficult to get together. Some of the lecturers are officially invited by the Government, who pay their fees and expenses, others—the majority—are quite as much interested in filling their pockets as in furthering the intellectual development of the Argentine, and very willingly invite themselves, any lecturer of the Latin race being a gifted self-advertiser. A good many ladies, chiefly Spanish novelists of reputation or political agitators, also grace the lecture platform in Buenos Ayres and the large provincial centres. A reception committee is usually formed to meet the distinguished visitor at the boat, and there is the usual _banquete_, with the equally inevitable _copa de champaña_, and the ubiquitous photographers from _Caras y Caretas_ and the other pictorial papers.

This movement has assumed proportions which in 1912 led the caricaturists to turn their attention to it, and cartoons of the different lecturers hurrying off with bags of gold, indicated the local cynicism on the subject; but apart from its amusing aspect it ought to be accepted as an earnest of the desire that does exist for instruction in subjects of public life. One popular lecture, for instance, was devoted to “The Management of Public Museums,” but literary subjects, studies of the lives of famous authors, and historical studies, as well as travel-talks, seem to be most acceptable. One lady arrived from Spain with a lecture in which she endeavoured to prove that Columbus was a Spaniard, based upon the most slender evidence put forth by a Spanish antiquary, with whom the wish was father to the thought; but she was listened to in a good-humoured, sceptical manner, which spoke well for the common-sense of the people, who wisely do not care a straw whether Columbus was a Gallego or Genoese. Among the celebrities engaged under Government auspices to lecture in recent years was a very famous French novelist, who is one of the favourite authors throughout Latin America. In common with most other authors, he not only lectured, but made use of his experience on returning home to describe the countries he had visited. His description of Uruguay is particularly remembered in Montevideo, as he is said to have mentioned the fine coffee plantations of that country, and this was the first that any Uruguayan had ever heard of them!

Although the final civilisation of the Argentine people will leave between it and any Anglo-Saxon civilisation a marked cleavage, yet it will approximate more closely to the British or North American than to the French or Spanish. To say that the Argentines are Latins with certain aspirations which are essentially characteristic of the Anglo-Saxons, would be too broad a generalisation, but, closely analysed, we can discover even more characteristics in the Argentine sympathetic to British social notions,—imitative of them, perhaps,—than in the French or Spanish, though at bottom, the Argentine remains Latin, and every nation, like every individual, is doomed to carry, wherever it goes along the road of progress or retrogression, “the baggage of its own psychology.” Socially, the British have passed through some of the phases from which the Argentine is only just emerging, and North Americans have passed through others which at no time affected British social life.

In concluding this chapter, I have to admit that I have been somewhat hampered in its construction by the fact that many illustrations which I have stored in my mind affecting the social side of things, fall more properly into other sections of my book, so that it is impossible to avoid in some degree the overlapping of interests, especially when I deal with subjects such as that in my succeeding chapter, which is really a further consideration of the social life of the country. In the present chapter, I have therefore sought to do no more than touch discursively upon certain incidents and matters coming within my knowledge during my stay on the River Plate, which may shed some light on an aspect of the Argentine which few American or English writers mention in their usually flattering and too often uncritical studies of the country and its people.