Uruguay, more especially its capital, is well-found in the matter of femininity. Indeed, ever since it became a full-blown city Montevideo has been celebrated for its pretty women. This fortunate state of affairs has now become a well-recognised fact, in which the masculine portion of the community takes an even greater pride than does the sex more directly involved. Should a patriotic Montevidean be engaged in conversation with an interested foreigner, the chances are that it will not be long ere the confident question is asked: "And our señoritas, what is your opinion of them?"
In such a case there can be only one opinion—or expression of opinion. Conscience may be salved by the reflection that it is as difficult to find a woman without some stray claim to beauty as it is to light upon a dame of sixty without a grey hair. In both cases the feature may be hard to see. If so, it must be taken for granted. In the case of the Montevidean señorita no such feat of the imagination is necessary. To the far-famed graces of her sisters throughout South America she adds the freshness of complexion and the liveliness of temperament that are characteristic of the land.
Indeed, to conceive these lighter virtues, added to the natural Spanish stateliness, is to picture a very bewitching feminine consummation. Much has been written concerning the señoritas of Uruguay, and yet not a line too much. Their own kith and kin have sung their praises with all the tremendous hyperbole of which the Spanish tongue is capable. White hands, bright eyes, raven hair, and a corresponding remainder of features that resemble all pleasant things from a dove to the moon—the collection of local prose and verse on the subject is justifiably enormous.
The Montevidean lady has now, of course, become essentially modern. She rides in a motor-car, plays the piano instead of the guitar, and has exchanged the old order in general for the new. Yet the same vivacity, courage, and good looks remain—which is an excellent and beneficial thing for Montevideo and its inhabitants. Indeed, the beach of Poçitos or the sands of Ramirez shorn of their female adornment would be too terrible a disaster to contemplate even on the part of the most hardened Oriental. And at this point it is advisable to forsake for the present the more intimate affairs of the people, leaving the last word to the ladies, as, indeed, is only fitting—and frequently inevitable.
The majority of South American Republics—or rather of those in the lower half of the continent—are keenly alive to the benefits of many of the European methods and institutions. Although each of these countries possesses a strong individuality of its own, the generality of these younger nations have almost invariably shown themselves eager to graft to their system foreign methods of organisation that have stood the test of time and that have not been found wanting.
Indeed, in matters of practical progress the citizen of the more enlightened South American Republics is blessed with an unusually open mind. This condition has naturally borne fruit in experiments, and it is this very tendency to receptiveness that has frequently laid these States open to accusations of irresponsibility. Often enough the charge has proved entirely unjust, since it was based on nothing beyond a too fervent outbreak into an experimental region from which it was hoped to extract remedies and innovations that should tend to the betterment of the Republic.
The direction of the public services affords striking instances of the kind. The navy, army, and police of the more progressive of the republics are usually modelled on European patterns. The navy is usually conducted on the English system, the army follows German methods, and the police copies as closely as possible the time-honoured principles of what is undoubtedly the finest force in the world, the English constabulary. Uruguay follows this procedure only in part. The kit of the troops here is of the French, rather than the German, pattern; and although the naval uniforms throughout the civilised world are all more or less alike, that of the Uruguayan does not resemble the British as closely as do some others, notably that of the Chilian. The costume of the Oriental police, however, helmet and all, is almost exactly the counterpart of the British, although it boasts the additional adornment of a sword and of spats.
The work of the Uruguayan police, moreover, is to be commended for a lack of officiousness and fussy methods. They are little concerned with larceny, and with the similar forms of petty dishonesty, for the nation, as a whole, is endowed with a strict sense of the sacredness of property. The trait is to a large extent inherent in all the nations of the River Plate; but in this instance it may well be that it has become even more accentuated by the drastic methods of General Artigas at the beginning of the nineteenth century, whose abhorrence of theft and whose exemplary castigation of the crime may well have left an impression that has endured for almost a century.
I have already referred to the sobriety of the Uruguayan. Perhaps for the reason that he is of a more openly jovial temperament he is slightly more addicted to looking upon his native wine when it is red than is the Argentine or Paraguayan. But the cases where this occurs are isolated enough. Indeed, in the matter of sobriety the Uruguayan can easily allow points to almost every European nation. The majority of crimes that occur to the east of the River Plate are neither those brought about by dishonesty nor drink. They are far more frequently the result of differences of opinion and of old-standing feuds that are avenged by the knife and revolver, for the Uruguayan, though courteous to a degree, is quick to resent offence, more especially when the umbrage given is brought about in the course of a political discussion.