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

by J. A. Hammerton

Next morning, or it may have been the next again, when walking along the Calle Florida, our Gringo was surprised to find himself stopped by a policeman, with whom was the cochero, and requested to accompany them to the comisaría. He gave the agente to understand, as well as he could by gesture and some of his odd Spanish words, that he would go with him in a coach, but would not be taken on foot through the streets. Eventually this was agreed to, and thus they reached the police station, where some hours passed before the magistrate could or would inquire into the case.

In vain did the prisoner claim permission to communicate with the British Minister, and when at length he was brought before the judge, it was clear that gentleman had made up his mind on the story already told by the cabman, which was naturally a tissue of lies. A request for an interpreter was at first refused, the magistrate saying he believed the Gringo understood well enough what was being said to and about him, but on continued protest, an interpreter was called, and he made it his first business to interpret nothing said either by the magistrate or by the accused, but advised the latter to pay up and get out of the court at once. Mr. Gringo, being a particularly stiff-necked British type, insisted that having incurred the trouble of being arrested, he would not now pay one centavo more than he had offered the cochero at the hotel, and demanded that his side of the case should be fully interpreted to the magistrate. Even this seemed to make no impression on the enlightened administrator of the law, who stated that the simple fact remained that the coachman had been engaged and had not been discharged, and that evidently the accused had not taken sufficient pains to make sure that the coachman was not waiting for him at the appointed time and place, the prosecutor producing a lying witness who swore to seeing him at the appointed place and at the time stated.

At this juncture the Englishman again in the most emphatic way instructed the interpreter to insist on having the case adjourned until he could have time to communicate with the British Minister, as he was willing even to run the risk of a night in jail rather than accede to any order of Court that seemed to him unjust. His request was again dismissed as irrelevant, the matter being one entirely for the consideration of the police judge. Then, suddenly recollecting that at the moment of his arrest he was on the way to visit a very influential Argentine with whom he had business relations, and who took a prominent part in local politics, he suggested that he be permitted to communicate with this gentleman. When the judge heard the name of this gentleman pronounced, and realised he might be a friend of the accused, the whole complexion of the case instantly changed, and instead of passing judgment for the payment of the coachman’s claim, as he had originally shown a readiness to do, he calmly asked the accused why he had not mentioned before that he was a friend of Señor Fulano de Tal, and the matter could have been arranged immediately. Moreover, he would not even allow that the coachman was entitled to more than one peso, his minimum fare for the ride from the hotel to the place at which the Englishman left the coach!

So dumbfoundered was the plaintiff at this sudden change of front that he burst into a volley of oaths against the Gringo and also insulted the judge, who forthwith clapped him into jail to cool off for the next three days!

Our friend, not a little satisfied with the turn of events, was thereupon liberated, with no worse loss than that of some four or five hours’ time, and the expenditure of a certain amount of nervous anxiety. But that was not the end of the matter. The cochero, having spent a few pesos by way of bribes anticipatory, had ample time in the next three days to nurse his wrath to scalding point, and the Englishman was advised, in view of this, to be very careful of his movements after these three days had passed, as it was a matter that might be settled in the approved manner of the Italian—at the point of the stiletto.

It so happened that five days after the court scene, the Englishman was due to sail for England, and during the days following the prisoner’s release he practically never left the hotel, even taking the precaution of having his luggage conveyed to the boat by another traveller, to throw the coachman off the scent, if perchance he was lurking about, seeking vengeance. Then when ready to leave, a friend engaged a taxicab and drove up in it to the kitchen entrance of the hotel, the Englishman jumping in instantly. Thus he succeeded in eluding the ruffian, but he actually saw him arrive at the quayside just when the visitors were being turned off the vessel.

The simple narration of this episode can give but faint idea of the anxiety and inconvenience it must have caused to the English traveller, and it is to be doubted whether in the end he was the gainer. My own policy was invariably to submit to any sort of injustice when I could not see an immediate likelihood of successfully protesting against it. The line of least resistance is certainly the only policy in the Argentine that makes for comfort and peace of mind.

The practice of indiscriminately thrusting people into jail and leaving them there for several days, in the vilest conditions and often in a common room with the most desperate characters, before inquiring into their cases, had one solitary merit, and, as the Irishman said, even that was a bad one. In every motor accident that takes place—and there are many daily—the first thing the policeman does is to march the chauffeur off to jail, and have the car removed afterwards. It is a matter of complete indifference to the police whether the accident is the fault of the chauffeur or not—off he goes to jail and there he may lie for several days before he is discharged. As it would be difficult to discover more reckless drivers than those who make pandemonium of the streets of Buenos Ayres, this struck me as not entirely a bad method. To assume the guilt of the motor-driver until he had proved his innocence was, in nine cases out of ten, to take the proper course. Some English acquaintances of mine, however, who kept an automobile and employed a very considerate and cool-headed Englishman as driver, were unable to agree with me, as their man had just spent three days in jail for a slight accident, in which a careless passenger had injured his foot by stepping off the pavement against the wheel of the car, and owing to the verminous condition of the jail, the poor chauffeur had to destroy all his clothes after he was liberated! My friends also had to suffer inconvenience owing to their car being abandoned in the street by the arrest of the driver, and being held by the police for a day or two before it was delivered to them, sustaining in the meantime some damage. The only moral of this story is that Buenos Ayres is no place for an English chauffeur!

But of course it is easy to be critical of the social conditions of a country which, after all, has no more than emerged from somewhat primitive conditions into the larger life of a great modern nation. The Spanish civilisation in America was not in every way superior to the native civilisations it destroyed and supplanted, and for generations it made but little progress of itself, if anything deteriorating as the inevitable consequence of its low and brutalising aim—the securing of treasure for the Spanish Crown. The Spanish communities established throughout the continent were notoriously lacking in ideals. Until they threw off the yoke of Spain and began to feel within themselves the stirring of national aspirations, to cherish ambitions of elevating themselves into individual nations, their history went some way to justify the famous cynicism that the true dividing line between Africa and Europe are not the Straits of Gibraltar, but the Pyrenees.

No longer, however, can it be said that any of these virile young peoples are without their ideals. If the Argentine citizen had no other figure than the splendid one of Sarmiento to point to, he would still be justified in claiming for his country a place among the intellectual nations of our time. And Sarmiento is but one of many great men whom the Argentine has produced.