Police, &c.—To every barrier or parish an alcalde, or sitting magistrate, is appointed, who takes cognizance of the offences and disputes in his jurisdiction, and superintends the night-patrole. Every male is liable to be called out to act as watchman for the night; and he must attend, or provide a substitute, which costs six reals; and as this happens very often, strangers find it a tax. The patrole are armed with musquets and bayonets, and proceed through the streets at intervals during the night, visiting public houses, &c.
The most inferior officer connected with the police, or any public office, carries a rusty dragoon sword with him as his staff of office. The very messenger that delivers the summons for the nightly patrole comes thus armed, and upon the least provocation out goes the sword: this has been of late years a little corrected.
Buenos Ayres can boast of a well-disposed and orderly population. Robberies are sometimes committed, but nothing to the extent that might be supposed; many more are committed in an English city of the same magnitude, notwithstanding the expensive police. I have been out at all hours of the night, and have felt myself as secure as though I were in London, and perhaps more so.
The only time that I ever met with any thing like annoyance or interruption in the streets, was from a soldier on guard at the Cabildo, who made an attempt to push me from the pavement. I did not wish to notice the affair; but a Creole friend insisted that I should do so, stating, that in London he presumed Englishmen protected strangers when insulted. He went with me to the guard-house, alleged a complaint before an officer, and the soldier was confined: he appeared to be drunk.
The great blot of this country is, that amongst the lower orders, upon the least quarrel, knives are out; and what in England would vent itself in black eyes and bloody noses, here ends in murder; and until certain and speedy punishment follows these deeds, it will ever be so. The crime has decreased since the administration of Mr. Rivadavia, and the enactment of the law prohibiting the wearing of knives; still it continues in a degree. Justice is tardy, and the chance that the criminal may again be at liberty deters people from prosecuting, dreading his future vengeance. In England, where the law is strong, every one assists to apprehend an offender; but here a lukewarmness exists.
Several have, within these three years, suffered death for murder. I am inclined to think, that a law upon the plan of Lord Ellenborough’s act would do much to stop it. A Portuguese, some months since, stabbed to death the servant of Mr. Bevans, the Quaker engineer, in open day. The opponents of boxing, in England, should pause ere they so decidedly condemn it; its suppression might lead to more fatal results in deciding quarrels.
It was a common event, long after I arrived, to see bodies of persons who had been stabbed in some broil, exposed in the Plaza, to be recognized by their relatives or friends, with a saucer placed at their side to collect money to pay the expences of burying them.
These murders are confined to the very lowest orders of the people, and are generally the effect of a drunken quarrel. I must do them the justice to say, that I have not heard of any deliberate assassination, committed either upon a native or foreigner. Their annals are free from the refined murders of polished Europe, even, I regret to add, of our own England; we must not always cite the latter as an example, when we censure the abuses of other countries.