FOOTNOTES:
[13] By a return for 1836, it appears that in the City in that year,
| The Marriages were | 412 | |
| Baptisms | 3211 | |
| Deaths | 2785 | exclusive of those in the hospitals. I have no return from the Country. |
[14] The same list will give some idea of the general distribution of the trades for 1836; it was as follows:—
| 358 | Wholesale stores. |
| 348 | Retail shops. |
| 323 | Tailors, shoemakers, milliners, and all handicrafts. |
| 6 | Booksellers. |
| 598 | Pulperias, or drinking shops. |
| 26 | Billiard-tables. |
| 44 | Hotels, taverns, and eating-houses. |
| 48 | Confectioners and liqueur-shops. |
| 29 | Chemists and apothecaries. |
| 76 | Flour-shops and bakeries. |
| 44 | Baracas, or hide-warehouses. |
| 33 | Timber-yards. |
| 13 | Livery-stables. |
| 6 | Coachmakers. |
| 874 | Carts and carriages paid duties. |
CHAPTER V.
CITY OF BUENOS AYRES.
Great extent of the City. Public Buildings. Inconvenient Arrangement and want of Comfort in the Dwellings of the Natives a few years ago. Prejudice against Chimneys. Subsequent Improvements introduced by Foreigners. Iron gratings at the windows necessary. Water scarce and dear. That of the River Plata excellent, and capable of being kept a very long time. Pavement of Buenos Ayres.
Buenos Ayres, like all other cities in Spanish America, is built upon the uniform plan[15] prescribed I believe by the Council of the Indies, consisting of straight streets, intersecting each other at right angles every 150 yards; and, from the peculiar construction of the houses, covers at least twice the ground which would be required for any European city of the same population.
With the exception of the churches, which, though unfinished externally, exhibit in their interior all the gaudy richness of the religion to which they belong, and will be lasting memorials of the pious zeal of the Jesuits, who built the greater part of them, there is nothing remarkable in the style of the public buildings. The old government considered money laid out in beautifying the city as so much thrown away upon the colonists, and the new government has been as yet too poor to do more than has been absolutely necessary; what has been done, however, has been well done, and does credit to the republican authorities.