In Lima, Montevideo, and Asuncion, the post office clerks also do a lucrative business in selling canceled stamps to collectors. They will invariably ask the foreigner if he wishes to buy a set of the current issue canceled. If he refuses they are offended.
Peru is very fertile in the stamp issues that it has put forth ever since postage stamps have been invented. Fortunately for collectors, Peru is considered a good country, as many of its stamps bring high prices in London, New York, and Paris. The natives know this and there is not to be found a booth in Lima which sells stationery, lead pencils, cigars, and lottery tickets which does not also sell canceled postage stamps of the past issues of the country. These can be bought very cheaply, and can be resold in the United States at fancy prices.
Peru can be called a lawless country. It has a good code but its laws are not lived up to. There have been many revolutions and there will be a continuance of them due to its lawless, heterogeneous population, and the political rivalry between different factions. Most of the inhabitants have political ambitions on account of the graft connected with the appointments. Although this is true all over the world, it is especially true in Peru. The cholo maltreats the Indian, and the white man bullies the cholo. The Lima police very seldom arrest a foreigner because they can work him for money. I know of an American in Lima who through some act of his got into conflict with the police. They led him off ostensibly to jail, but when they reached a dark street they asked him how much he would give if they let him go. They willingly accepted ten pesos. One night I made a purchase in one of the stores. After having paid for it, I took my purchase and walked out into the street. I had scarcely taken a few steps before the proprietor ran out of his store and told me that I had not paid him enough because he had discovered that what he sold me was worth more than he charged me. This is a favorite South American dodge and is perpetrated by storekeepers when they think they can get more for their goods than what they sold them for. Even the proprietor of a large importing drug firm in Arequipa tried this on me once, and he was a man worth over one hundred thousand dollars. I declined to pay the Lima storekeeper any more money and also declined to give up my purchase. A half block away stood several policemen and he sent a friend after one of these. The cops soon appeared on the scene and started to make a big fuss. Ordinarily I would have returned the purchase but this happened to be something that I wanted. When the policemen, storekeeper, and bystanders were at the pitch of excitement, I managed to slip a couple of pesos into the hands of the former. They immediately changed their attitude, threatened the storekeeper and his friend with arrest, espoused my cause, and even went with me as far as the door of the Hotel Maury to "protect me from molestation" as they called it.
A certain Lima senator not long ago caught his wife in a compromising act with a stranger. He had them both arrested on a charge of adultery. He hired the police to castrate the stranger, which was done in the jail. No proceedings were ever taken against the senator and the stranger was given short notice to leave the city.
Cercado Church, Lima
The General Cemetery of Lima is worthy of a visit. It is situated outside of the city limits, east of a suburb named Cercado. From the Plaza Santa Ana, the best way to reach it is by the long, populous, and none too straight Calle Junin on which is passed the ancient salmon-colored church of Carmen in front of a shady plazuela. I once saw a vulture the size of an eagle perched on the top of one of the iron framework crosses that ennoble its exterior. Several long blocks beyond it is Cercado, now inside the corporation of Lima but formerly a separate village, founded in 1586, and given the name Santiago. Its present name, Cercado, is derived from the Spanish circuido meaning "surrounded," because the town was formerly surrounded with walls. At the end of one of its tortuous streets is an insane asylum of such a forbidding character that the epithet over its gate, "Let all who enter leave hope behind," can be properly applied. In its garden is a well where the attendants duck the refractory imbeciles till bubbles come up. Behind the asylum is the Plaza de Cercado, treeless, and traversed by an open sewer. Here is situated the ancient, dull drab, towered church, also named Cercado. A prolongation of the Calle Ancahs, here a broad avenue, bordered on both sides by large trees, leads directly to the cemetery.
