[Footnote:
Public square.] The president is elected by the people for a term of
three years, and invariably retires a rich man, however poor he may
have been when entering on his office. The laws of the country may be
described as model and Christian, but the carrying out of them is a
very different matter.
Some of the laws are excellent and worthy of our imitation, such as,
for example, the one which decrees that bachelors shall be taxed.
Civil elections are held on Sundays, the voting places being Roman
Catholic churches.
Both postmen and telegraph boys deliver on horseback, but such is the
lax custom that everything will do to-morrow. That fatal word is the
first the stranger learns - manana.
Comparatively few people walk the streets. "No city in the world of
equal size and population can compare with Buenos Ayres for the
number and extent of its tramways." [Footnote: Turner's "Argentina."]
A writer in the Financial News says: "The proportion of the
population who daily use street-cars is sixty-six times greater in
Buenos Ayres than in the United Kingdom."
This Modern Athens, as the Argentines love to term their city, has
a beautiful climate.
