"We are so well governed," said a resident of ten years to the Sun man, "that we do not need a change. We can put the responsibility right on the one man in our present situation. Nothing goes wrong and our taxes amount to about $3 on $1,000 in a year. Real estate and live stock are about the only things taxed."
Well governed as Punta Arenas is it is curious to note how certain customs in municipal government exist the world over. Did you notice that police official who just went by? Well, he keeps his carriage and private coachman and his people dress well, and his home is above the average in its pretensions. His salary? Oh, about $1,500 a year. You see they can't pay high police salaries in a town of 12,000 and only about fifty policemen. But there are certain resorts which sailormen and others support in all remote places of any size, and the authorities somehow seem not to observe them too closely—well, there's no need to go into the matter further.
Some things, however, are a little different in Punta Arenas from other places, because it is one of the few large free ports in the world. You can import anything duty free. Chile had to adopt this plan to build the place up. Even ocean freight is high to this far off place. Argentina had to make several of its neighboring ports free in consequence of the advantages of Punta Arenas, and so you have about five free ports down in this neck of the woods.
Some curious effects have followed, the most interesting of which is that Punta Arenas is one of the greatest centres of smuggling in the world. You will not get any of its merchants to admit it openly. For instance, it is said that there are more Havana cigars imported into Punta Arenas than into all the rest of Chile put together. They are not consumed here. They go somewhere. Punta Arenas does not begin to use all the millions of goods imported. A little figuring would show that. The outside population in the territory, amounting to about 5,000, could not take care of the rest after the wants of Punta Arenas are satisfied. Why, there are no less than twenty-two coasting steamers engaged in trade from here, to say nothing about scores of sloops and schooners darting in and out among the islands and channels that run far up the Pacific coast. One of the merchants gave an instance of the smuggling. He said:
"Not long ago I had several hundred articles of limited sale consigned to me by mistake. I couldn't sell them here and didn't want to send them back. I sent some somewhere else. They sold like hot cakes. You see the price was so much lower than you could buy them before in that same city where they were sent. It is true that there is a great deal of quiet wealth here, but really you mustn't ask too many questions."
An interesting sidelight was thrown on this subject when this same man was talking about the illumination of the city by the American fleet's searchlights on the night before the fleet sailed. Fully seventy-five beams were thrown from the ships. They swept the town fore and aft. Some of the ships concentrated their lights in one spot. Five beams from our ship were centered upon the church steeple in the plaza. It made the place so light that you could read a newspaper anywhere. The entire town was in a light almost like that of midday.
"I wonder that it didn't make some of our people run into holes to hide," said a citizen who knew things when he was speaking of the brilliant illumination.
As is well known, Punta Arenas started out in life as a penal colony. It will surprise most of those who know the place and probably some of the residents themselves that it is still a penal colony legally, because the penal laws were never repealed. Indeed, it is even now a place of exile. Every few months some man arrives from the upper part of Chile who has been banished to the place. Once here he is welcome to stay or go as he pleases. These men are usually embezzlers or undesirable citizens from some other cause in small places where the machinery of justice is inadequate to fit the crime. The culprit is ordered to Punta Arenas.
It was in 1843 that Chile took possession of all this territory, wresting it from Spain. She established a penal colony at once in Port Famine, a few miles from here. In 1849 she removed the colony to Punta Arenas. Two years later there was mutiny of the guards, led by Lieut. Cambiaso. There was a good deal of slaughtering before it was quelled. In 1877 there was another similar mutiny, and then Chile withdrew the guards and let Punta Arenas get along as a commercial place.
The free port regulations followed, merchants came dropping in, fur trading became profitable and then came the sheep industry and Punta Arenas graduated into the really modern city it is. Where it is possible to make money there you will find people these days, for the rovers of the earth are just as active as ever and neither cold nor heat, sickness nor desolation will stop the march of commerce.