The Amazing Argentine

as a population nearing a million and a half, which is greater than that of any other tow

u for being reminded his father sailed from Italy, or his grandfather from Spain. He has no affection for any old la

a good time in Paris. When he takes his family to Paris it is not to spend three, five, or six months. It is to spend three, five, or six hu

eveloping the country. They dislike the citizen of the United States because the big brother Republic of the north patronises them, and they need nobody

is casual he has shrugged his shoulders at South American Republics, where they have revolutions every six weeks,

landed in a rampantly modern American-cum-European city. There is none of the slot

railway yards. There are huge killing establishments, and animals go to their death by the many thousand every day with a celerity which would awaken a Chicagoan. There are mighty avenues of chilled and frozen meat. Labour-saving machinery carries it on bo

H. G. Olds,

HOTEL, BUE

s. In and about Reconquista are these banks, ever busy. Near by are the rival shipping offices, a glut of them. The offices of the great railway companies are enormous. Wide-spreading premises exhibit the latest and best

nce between a millionaire and one of his clerks, except that the former has an expensive motor-car and the latter hires a taxi or a victoria, or travels b

in our own colonies. The man of Spanish descent in the Argentine is not always the spry fellow he thinks himself; but he has dropped the cloak of sluggishness

leagues. But a hundred leagues, however good for cattle or sheep, or wheat growing-what was its value a couple of hundred miles from a port? Then came British railways. They pierced the prairies. The land bounded in value, tenfold, a thousandfold. Other people came in; first shrewd Scotsmen; then industrious Italians; then Englishmen bent on becoming estancieros. Their children a

and splendid colonists they are. Though the language will always be Spanish, the race is rapidly becoming Italianised. There is a commingling of the sterner stuff from Europe. So in t

f days before you are bombarded with the inquiry, "Don't you think th

a shop by carriage it is sometimes necessary to drive along three and a half sides of a block of buildings. Funny little policemen, brown faced, blue clad, and with white gaiters and white wan

ies. When a popular man has lost his popularity the remnant of his fame is obliterated by the street called after him being named after someone else. It is as though

are imitations of those in Paris. The restaurants are on a par with the best we have in London. A Viennese band plays whilst you have Russian caviare and the waiter is asking your choice in champagne. But everything is expensive. A man needs three times the salary in Buenos Aires to live the same way he would live in

. W. Boote & Co

UENOS AIRES

e town, is in rapid construction. The railways have a great suburban traffic, and are being electrified. There are British colonies at Belgrano and Hurlingham, and you have a choice of three golf courses. In the summer months-December, January, and February-there is river life on th

entation is one of the stars of life in the Argentine. Appearances count for everything. You must have a motor-car, even though you have not the money to pay for it, and you owe the landlord of your flat a year's rent. Th

no bookmakers. The totalisator is used. Betting is officially conducted by the Jockey Club, and there is constant announcement of the amount of money put on the horses. Those who have backed the winners share the spoil, less ten per cent. As this ten per cent. is deducted from the total amount put on each race, the income of the Jockey Club runs into hundreds of th

s. Moving from wonder to wonder, I was present at a gala performance at the Colon Theatre. I have seen all the great theatres in the world, and this is the loveliest-a harmony of rose and gold. The audience was as fashionably dressed as

the proprieties. There are brilliant receptions, but dinner parties, as we know them, are rare. An Argentine seldom introduces a friend to his wife. Except amongst the poorest a woman scarcely ever goes into the streets alone. If she does she runs risk of being insulted. There are Argentines, who would be offended if refused the name

ly irreligious. In conversation I have been told of the tolerance to

ing along the Avenida Alvear, a street of palaces, reminiscent of the Grand Canal at Venice if it were a roadway. But the fine stone blocks are nothing but st

the muddy flats by the side of the muddy Parana Ri