The real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay

by J. A. Hammerton

Exterior and Interior of the “Casa Rosada.”

The upper illustration shows the façade of the Government House towards the gardens of the Paseo Colón; the lower, the vestibule entering from the main door in the Plaza de Mayo.

But, on the whole, it would be impossible to find more inspiring examples of human energy and ingenuity in the face of extraordinary difficulties than in the erection of these great buildings. To watch the low colonial house fall to the pick and shovel in a few days, the crazy scaffolding quickly reared for mining out the earth, the mighty steel uprights and girders arriving on huge wagons, each drawn by three or four sweating horses, the labourers swinging them into position, the frame of the ten- or twelve-story building presently disengaging itself where so recently stood the shanty, the bricklayers clothing it with their handiwork, the plasterers finishing its exterior with graceful decorative touches,—all this was to me a source of endless interest.

There is no evidence of an elementary regard for human life in the streaming streets of riotous traffic. Often have I seen buildings in course of demolition with no better guard against falling bricks and blocks of cement than some rough pack-sheet stretched in front. Sometimes not even that dubious courtesy is shown to the passer-by, and the demolishers stand aloft knocking down the walls inwards without the slightest protection against the fragments that rebound and land in the middle of the street. On several occasions I have escaped by half a yard or so a falling brick that might well have closed my account. Even when blasting with dynamite old foundation walls of brick and mortar, a few yards from the pavement, nothing will be done for the safety of the passer-by. The casualty columns of the daily papers are eloquent evidence of the risks the ignorant labourers run who are employed in this work of demolition.

In effecting repairs to the exteriors, painting, and the like, the workers are confronted with many difficulties, for the simple expedient of erecting ladders as in our cities is denied to them. A ladder would block the whole pavement. So they have to reverse the old order, and instead of placing the ladder firmly on the ground and leaning it against the wall, they plant the foot of it in the angle of the pavement and the wall and lean it away from the building, securing the upper and projecting end by ropes to a window. The worker on the ladder is thus between the ladder and the wall. And from this coign of vantage he drops paint or wet plaster on the passers-by with a cheerfulness and impartiality which must be seen to be duly appreciated.

Naturally the beautiful detail and the imposing appearance of many of the finest buildings in the city are completely lost for lack of space to see them. Hundreds of thousands of pounds may be said to be wasted in this way; for there is widespread effort to render the façades of the buildings artistic, the cement or plaster with which they are covered lending itself to all sorts of decorative treatment. But anything over two stories in height is above the line of sight in the narrow streets, and there are prodigalities of decoration, in the third and fourth and higher reaches of the new buildings which have never been noticed by anybody since the day they were uncovered. A barn-like structure would have served the purpose equally and given as good an effect—except in a photograph, taken from one of the upper stories on the opposite side of the street. Thus one has a curious feeling of disappointment on beholding many of the more notable buildings which he has first seen in photographs. The famous Jockey Club, for example. You are conscious that if you could get a hundred yards away from the front of it, you might find it a very handsome edifice. But the actual effect is that of a full-length photograph out of focus, in which the boots and the lower part of the legs dwarf all the rest.

I recall very vividly the impression of my first walks in those strange streets. The scarcity of women was very noticeable in the earlier part of the day. Such streets as Bartolomé Mitre, Cangallo, Sarmiento, Maipú, and San Martín, where the tide of business flows strongest, were crowded with men; the odd women who passed seemed out of place. But later in the day women and children may be seen in considerable numbers in Florida and the vicinity, though at no time are they ever relatively so numerous as in the streets of New York. And what never ceased to irritate me was the rudeness with which the passers-by stared at me and at each other. I was prepared for them feasting their eyes on the odd women, but man scrutinising man was new to me. They inspect your necktie, study the style of your hat, stare at your boots! They gape at you, so that you wonder if you have forgotten your collar or if your suspenders are hanging down! You are reassured, however, by their gaping at each other for no obvious reason. It is merely a vulgar habit, probably acquired by the gapers when first they arrived from the hill villages of Italy or the desert towns of Spain, when any person decently clothed was a novelty to them.

Some of the half-breed policemen at the street corners, trying to “control” the traffic, are a source of infinite joy. Armed with white batons, they wave these about in a way so bewildering that it is a puzzle to know whether they mean to hold up one of the streams of cross traffic or invite the two opposing processions to mutual destruction. On the whole, although some of these policemen, shamefully underpaid, indulge in a little robbery to keep the pot boiling—one, whom I had rather grown to like, mounted guard one Sunday while a gang of thieves, with carts and motor cars, plundered the newly-opened branch of Harrods’ London Stores in Florida!—I came to form a very favourable opinion of them, and many showed real courtesy and good sense in controlling the traffic, under the most trying circumstances, as every cochero and chauffeur looks upon them with contempt and pays a minimum of respect to their authority.

I have been told by old English residents of Buenos Ayres, who are prepared to perjure their souls on behalf of the city that has given them the opportunity to grow richer than they were ever likely to become at home, that “there are no poor and there are no beggars in Buenos Ayres.” Both statements are untrue. There are lots of poor, and there are some beggars. (Time was when the beggars went about on horseback, to the confusion of the old proverb.) It could not be otherwise in a vast metropolis, abnormally larger than the country behind it will warrant for many years to come, to which the poor of the poorest countries in Europe, Spain and Italy, are flocking in daily ship-loads. No poor in Buenos Ayres, forsooth! Thousands of poor are dumped down at the docks every month, and poor many of them remain forever—poor and criminal—though many more, with energy and application, escape from the ranks of poverty, and not a few grow rich.