nothing can succeed without it be begun when the moon is on the
increase; so that half the month is lost from these two causes.
Police and justice are quite inefficient. If a man who is poor commits
murder and is taken, he will be imprisoned, and perhaps even shot; but
if he is rich and has friends, he may rely on it no very severe
consequence will ensue. It is curious that the most respectable
inhabitants of the country invariably assist a murderer to escape: they
seem to think that the individual sins against the government, and not
against the people. A traveller has no protection besides his
fire-arms; and the constant habit of carrying them is the main check to
more frequent robberies. The character of the higher and more educated
classes who reside in the towns, partakes, but perhaps in a lesser
degree, of the good parts of the Gaucho, but is, I fear, stained by
many vices of which he is free. Sensuality, mockery of all religion,
and the grossest corruption, are far from uncommon. Nearly every
public officer can be bribed. The head man in the post-office sold
forged government franks. The governor and prime minister openly
combined to plunder the state. Justice, where gold came into play, was
hardly expected by any one. I knew an Englishman, who went to the
Chief Justice (he told me, that not then understanding the ways of the
place, he trembled as he entered the room), and said, "Sir, I have come
to offer you two hundred (paper) dollars (value about five pounds
sterling) if you will arrest before a certain time a man who has
cheated me. I know it is against the law, but my lawyer (naming him)
recommended me to take this step." The Chief Justice smiled
acquiescence, thanked him, and the man before night was safe in prison.
With this entire want of principle in many of the leading men, with the
country full of ill-paid turbulent officers, the people yet hope that a
democratic form of government can succeed!
On first entering society in these countries, two or three features
strike one as particularly remarkable. The polite and dignified
manners pervading every rank of life, the excellent taste displayed by
the women in their dresses, and the equality amongst all ranks. At the
Rio Colorado some men who kept the humblest shops used to dine with
General Rosas. A son of a major at Bahia Blanca gained his livelihood
by making paper cigars, and he wished to accompany me, as guide or
servant, to Buenos Ayres, but his father objected on the score of the
danger alone. Many officers in the army can neither read nor write,
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