The old and the new Peru

by Marie Robinson Wright

The army consists of six battalions of infantry; a regiment of mountain artillery, a group of field artillery, and a group of artillery of sappers and miners; and six squadrons of cavalry, including the president’s escort. The various auxiliary corps include the general commissary of the army, the ordnance store, the military health department, and a supreme military and naval council. The infantry arms are Mauser rifles of seventy-five millimeters calibre; the cavalry and mountain artillery carry the carbine of the same model, the artillery having also field batteries formed of the latest Schneider-Canet guns. Military service is obligatory on all Peruvians between nineteen and fifty years of age, excepting directors of public schools, college professors and all who hold a diploma, exercising a liberal profession. The organization of the reserves and their mobilization is regulated by the establishment in each Department of battalions of sappers, consisting of four hundred and forty-eight men, and, in eleven Departments, of cavalry squadrons of one hundred and sixty-nine men. Peruvians from thirty-five to fifty years of age form the national guard. By the well-regulated system of conscription in force, Peru will have in a few years, in addition to its well-drilled army, a host of instructed reserves, requiring only a few drills to transform them into able soldiers. The republic is divided into four military zones, the capitals being Piura in the northern, Lima in the central, Arequipa in the southern, and Iquitos in the eastern zone. These districts are subdivided into eleven commands, composed of twenty-two departments and colonies. Under the direction of the army authorities, troops of mounted police, numbering two thousand two hundred men, serve in each department.

The navy, which, like the army, is a dependency of the War Office, has now three cruisers and three transports, and its reconstruction has been accompanied by the organization of a Naval School, under the direction of an officer of the French Navy. In this institution students are given the professional, theoretical, and military instruction necessary to qualify them as midshipmen, three years’ service qualifying for the rank of sub-lieutenant. On board the training ship Constitucion, civil, professional, naval, and military instruction is provided, after which the practicante passes to the vessels of the squadron, wherein he serves for five years. At present three Peruvian midshipmen are completing their practical instruction on board United States warships, and seven are gaining experience in the Royal Spanish Navy.

MR. ROOT AT THE NATIONAL CLUB, LIMA.

The progressive policy of President Pardo’s government is nowhere more conspicuously seen than in the Department of Public Works. The minister, Dr. Delfin Vidalón, last year published the report of his office in a volume of six hundred pages, every line of which bore reference to important industrial, commercial, or benevolent reforms in the numerous sections subject to his administration. In the direction of Fomento, which includes all matters relating to agriculture, mines, immigration, and various industries, as well as benevolent institutions, the amount of labor accomplished is phenomenal. Public works have been carried out on a vast scale, and in accordance with the most modern ideas. Railways, port works, and irrigation have occupied the best engineers of the government. Sanitation and hygiene, an important charge of this office, have received especial attention. The wireless telegraph, or radiograph, has been installed in the Amazon region, and successful experiments have been made in the use of this method of transmitting messages across the virgin forests of the tropics. A German company has successfully established radiographic communication from Puerto Bermudez on the river Pichis to Masisea on the Ucayali, this being the first attempt ever made to cross a territory densely covered by tropical vegetation. Two stations have been built, of three towers, each one hundred and fifty feet in height. The system is now being extended to Iquitos on the Amazon River. The question of public health is recognized by the government as of paramount importance to the well-being of the state, and the Department of Public Health has recently been made a dependency of the Ministry of Fomento. It is divided into two sections, hygiene and demography, and has the supervision of sanitary corps, vaccination, and all lazarettos of the republic. The sanitary corps have charge of the inspection of the ports,—the maritime sanitary defence being governed by regulations of the sanitary police, in accordance with the International Sanitary Convention held in Washington,—and sanitary stations are established at Paita, Ilo, and Callao. By this new organization, the means of guarding the health of the community is greatly simplified. Vaccination is obligatory in Peru. Sanitary inspection governs railway as well as steamboat traffic. The results are better health conditions in all the cities.

THE CENTRAL MARKET, LIMA.

The four years during which President Pardo has governed Peru have been marked by events of the greatest significance, not only in the history of that republic but in the annals of South American politics. The visit of Secretary Root of the United States in 1906 and the passing of the great Atlantic Squadron in 1908, are incidents that deserve to be recorded. Especially is this true as regards Peru. The visit of Secretary Root was more than a part of the programme carried out by that distinguished statesman in his tour of South America. It was, as he himself expressed it, when responding to the spontaneous and generous welcome given him by the Peruvian people, the renewal of an old, constant, and cordial friendship between the Peruvian people and their cousins of the United States. He said: “I have come here, not to look for new friends, but to salute the old ones; not to initiate any new policy, but to follow up the old and honored course; and on coming to South America, responding to the invitations from the different countries, going down by the eastern coast and coming up by the western, to pass by Peru without stopping here would make my trip as incomplete as a representation of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ without the appearance of Hamlet on the stage.” This frank expression of friendship was genuinely appreciated, as it showed that the warm sentiments which found voice in President Pardo’s address of welcome were thoroughly reciprocated. Nothing could have been more pleasing to Mr. Root than the following words, from the president’s speech: “These sentiments of sympathy and admiration shone forth at the dawn of Independence, because the founders of the Great Republic pointed out to our ancestors the way that led to freedom; and they have been gaining strength since the first days of our autonomic existence, owing to the bond which the admirable foresight of another great statesman of your country extended over this American land.”

PERUVIAN MARINES.