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198  according to the original intention. The advantages which have resulted from these regulations, may be estimated by the following comparative statement. In 1766, the period above alluded to, thirty-four females only were to be numbered, and much difficulty was found in keeping up that small establishment. At the present time, the commencement of April 1792, the number is considerably more than quadrupled. The females who are commonly known by the name of beatas (devotees) were then confined to fourteen only; but now amount to twenty-four, that being the number limited by the viceroy, with two supernumeraries. There are besides twenty-nine poor girls and orphans, fifteen repentant females, fifty boarders for education, eleven females who have voluntarily sought an asylum in the establishment, and thirty-six others belonging to the different casts, partly for education, and partly as domestics, forming in the whole a total of one hundred and sixty-seven persons, without reckoning either the recluses, whose stay is merely temporary, or the married women who retire thither to commence the legal proceedings for a divorce.

The above are the principal and most important benevolent establishments in the capital of Peru, in referring to which, the learned Murillo asserts, on the authority of father cha,