Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/192



162 A DAY AT BUENOS AIRES.

practice may lame you for a montli (experto crede!) and all your friends will certainly wag the head^ and vote you a ^' martyr to the gout/^ Another inconvenience is the cus- tom of placing the petticoat on the wall side : the bump- tious soutane also claims the honour, so you must per- petually be hopping on and off the lofty trottoir. To escape wind and rain you avoid the side whither the paper- slips are whirled : the thoroughfares of the city_, roughly speaking, face the cardinal points, whilst the wet and high winds strike them diagonally, and the houses act screens. Had the lines been fronted more obliquely, one-half of each thoroughfare would not have been in the sun, and the other half in the shade : moreover all the houses facing south- wards would not have been mildewed. The prevailing directions are the north-easter especially â€” like the norther, fine and cool â€” the wet souther and south-easter and the gusty south- south-wester and south-wester. Thus one side of the street is dry in wet and is windless in windy weather, and as the height of the houses increases, those at the corners should be rounded off to insure ventilation.

The street scandal is inexcusable in so wealthy a place. The municipality can afford $600,000 (f.) = 120,000/. of in- come, but the city fathers, those posts that point the way to progress without ever progressing, though eternally ^^ pitched into " give no sign, and fresh blood is still wanted. Buenos Aires sadly requires the Baron de Campy, who is supposed to have paved the Imperial capital further north. The new Custom House, the Moles, the Western Railway, the Gas Works, the Colon Theatre, and the Water Works, with other undertakings carried out by provincial resources, show how much may be done if money be not frittered away. A little macadam, compacted by water and a steam roller, would cheaply remedy the worst evils, and a better material would be the admirable Pedregulho or gravel from Salto of