Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/156



126 MONTEVIDEANS :

Curious to say, with all this public spirit Monte Video owns no English club. The last attempt at this first sign of civilization came to grief â€” ^' Camp " was allowed to run up bills for breakfasts and dinners. At present there is only a Sala di lectura in the Calle del Cerrito, where a slow senior fumbles over the newspapers â€” at the Commercial Rooms of Lima a Yankee rowdy is kept for the purpose. There is a native Circle in the Regent-street, " 25 de Maio/' and Argentines, a clubbable people, have the sense to keep up such places even in the country towns. Foreigners must meet in drinking-honses, hence about Christmas time or Midsummer there is a portentous diffusion of stimu- lants. In fact Camp at that season mostly comes to town for cocktails and billiards. Everywhere you see Cafe y Helados, and billiard-rooms are the rage, all allowing high play.

Amongst other institutions Monte Video rejoiced in a '* Gormandizing Club,^^ as did Rio Grande do Sul in her " Gluttons '/' both resemble our " Sublime Society of Beef- steaks,^^ which the vulgar would call a Beefsteak Club. This and sundry kindred institutions were kiUed by slack- ness of business. The forced currency, and the failure of the banks are subjects well known. The Fomentos Montevideano, a Credit Mobiher to buy up lands for sale, proved to be here as elsewhere mere moonshine. The tramway running to La Union is or might be a success : the Central Uruguayan Railway is not. The first sod was turned by General Flores on April 25, 1867 ; it has reached Las Piedras, some nine miles off, and no one now living ex- pects to hear the whistle at Durazno. Stone, brick, lime, and splendid timber, all are forthcoming save money alone ; no company has confidence in it, and we cannot wonder that such should be the case where revolutions are not the exceptions but the rule.