The Y.M.C.A. Is Now Erecting A Commodious Building, For Which
$200,000 Has Already Been Raised, And There Is A Y.W.C.A., With A
Membership Of Five Hundred.
Dr. Clark, in "The Continent of
Opportunity," says, "More millionaires live in Buenos Ayres than in
any other city of the world of its size.
The proportion of well-
clothed, well-fed people is greater than in American cities, the
slums are smaller, and the submerged classes less in proportion. The
constant movement of carriages and automobiles here quite surpasses
that of Fifth Avenue." The street cars are of the latest and most
improved electric types, equal to any seen in New York or London, and
seat one hundred people, inside and out. Besides these there is an
excellent service of motor cabs, and tubes are being commenced.
Level crossings for the steam roads are not permitted in the city
limits, so all trains run over or under the streets.
"The Post Office handles 40,000,000 pieces of mail and 125,000 parcel
post packages a month. The city has 1,209 automobiles, 27 theatres
and 50 moving picture shows. Five thousand vessels enter the port of
Buenos Ayres every year, and the export of meat in 1910 was valued at
$31,000,000. No other section of the world shows such growth."
[Footnote: C. H. Furlong, in The World's Work.]
The city, once so unhealthy, is now, through proper drainage, "the
second healthiest large city of the world." The streets, as I first
saw them, were roughly cobbled, now they are asphalt paved, and made
into beautiful avenues, such as would grace any capital of the world.
Avenida de Mayo, cut right through the old city, is famed as being
one of the most costly and beautiful avenues of the world.
On those streets the equestrian milkman is no longer seen. Beautiful
sanitary white-tiled tambos, where pure milk and butter are sold,
have taken his place. The old has been transformed and PROGRESS is
written everywhere.
CHAPTER II.
REVOLUTION.
South America, of all lands, has been most torn asunder by war.
Revolutions may be numbered by hundreds, and the slaughter has been
incredible. Even since the opening of the year 1900, thirty thousand
Colombians have been slain and there have been dozens of revolutions.
Darwin relates the fact that in 1832 Argentina underwent fifteen
changes of government in nine months, owing to internal strife, and
since then Argentina has had its full share.
During my residence in Buenos Ayres there occurred one of those
disastrous revolutions which have from time to time shaken the whole
Republic. The President, Don Juarez Celman, had long been unpopular,
and, the mass of the people being against him, as well as nearly half
of the standing army, and all the fleet then anchored in the river,
the time was considered ripe to strike a blow.
On the morning of July 26, 1890, the sun rose upon thousands of
stern-looking men bivouacking in the streets and public squares of
the city.
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