In addition to the public buildings enumerated above, there are also suites of rooms occupied by the Ecclesiastical Court, the General Archives, Topographical Department, Statistical Department, Medical Academy, Historical Institute, etc.
The citizens of Buenos Ayres have well provided for the unfortunate. Besides granting licenses to mendicants, and allowing them to go from door to door on horseback, the municipality has established an asylum for orphans and a foundling hospital.
Besides the cathedral, there are thirteen Catholic churches, two monasteries, and three convents. There are two hospitals, one for males, the other for females; but these institutions have neither the conveniences nor skilful physicians which those of more enlightened or longer established countries possess. There are also three foreign hospitals, supported by the English, French, and Italian governments.
The plazas, or public squares, are nine or ten in number; one of them is overlooked by the lofty cathedral and by the Casa de Justicia, and contains a monument, erected in commemoration of past events of national importance, and especially of the Declaration of Independence from the mother country.
Many improvements have been made in the city in late years, chief among which is the new brick seawall, of considerable height, protecting the town from damage by high tides of the river.
From this wall, projecting into the stream, there was in process of construction at the time of my arrival a mole or wharf, of great length, which has since been completed, enabling small vessels and lighters to discharge their cargoes unassisted by the clumsy carts that formerly were the sole means of communication with the shore. The piles that support this wharf are pointed with iron, a precaution rendered necessary by the peculiarly hard formation of the river bed at this locality.
As the soil is impregnated with nitrate of potash, the well and other water is rendered unfit for table use. The wealthier citizens have deep cisterns at their residences, in which rain water is preserved; but the poorer classes have no other beverage than the river water, which is carried around the city in barrels, upon horses and mules, and retailed at a moderate price.
Slavery, which existed in these regions in a mild form until 1813, was, during that year, abolished by law. The system never assumed, in point of fact, that form which existed in our own republic, but was so lenient that the slaves were treated rather as children, or favorite servants, than as merely so much property.
Its gradual extinction set in many years before the period of legislation upon the subject. During the struggle for independence, the slave frequently fought side by side with his master, and manifested an equal anxiety with him to be liberated from the dominion of Spain. In consideration of services rendered during these patriotic struggles, and from a conviction that the system was far from beneficial to a newly-organized republic, the slaves were emancipated, and their descendants now form a valuable and active class, retaining little of the indolence usually ascribed to the unfortunate races from which they sprung.
During the ascendency of Rosas, the negro population was devotedly attached to Doña Mañuelita, his celebrated daughter, and their influence with her was almost boundless. It is related that in 1840, while an attack by Lavalle was momentarily expected, a young man from the town of San Juan was in Buenos Ayres, and was forbidden, under pain of death, to leave the city. An aged negress, who had, in former years, been in the service of his family, happened to recognize him, and learned his anxiety to depart. “All right, my friend!” she said; “I will go at once, and get you a passport.” “Impossible!” exclaimed the young man. “Not at all,” replied the negress. “La Señorita Mañuelita will not deny it to me.”