Deck and port /

by Walter Colton

The police of Valparaiso, which once seldom protected the innocent, or punished the guilty, is now unrivalled in efficiency. Its vigilance reaches your person and property through every hour of the day and night. You are safe even in spite of your own negligence. If, for instance, you leave your shop with the window unbolted, you will find the next morning a padlock on it, and one which you cannot remove without paying a fine of three dollars. If you dine out, tarry late at the wine, get tipsy, and can’t find your way home, a watchman picks you up, puts you into a chaise, finds out by some means where you live, takes you to your door, and delivers you to your waiting wife, with the good-humored remark that you are a little indisposed. What a capital arrangement for those who have more wine than wit in them!

If you wake up in the night, find one of your family sick, and want a physician, you have only to hand his name to the watchman near your door, who passes it to another, and he to another still, till it reaches its destination, and you soon have the physician at your side. His prescription must perhaps be taken to an apothecary; it is handed to the watch, passed on, and in a few minutes back comes the medicament required. What bachelor might not venture to get married in Valparaiso?

Saturday, March 14. The governor of Valparaiso, with his suite, visited our ship this morning. He is a man of some sixty years of age, with no very brilliant qualities, but possesses sound sense. He expressed himself delighted with our frigate, examined every part of her, and received, as he went over her side, the salute due to his rank.

Our ship has been the constant scene of visits from the Chilians. A party has just left us who came all the way from Santiago. They make themselves quite at home on our decks. When the band strikes up, they call for a waltz, or fandango, and commence dancing with just as much freedom as if they were on their own village green, beneath the light of the moon. On leaving they urge us to come and see them, promising us horses to ride, music, and the smiles of a thousand glad eyes. Their invitations are full of sincerity and heart; and for my own part I would much sooner avail myself of them, than the august condescension which should open to me the palace of a king.

The inequalities of the feudal system, introduced from old Spain, still survive in Chili. The lands are owned by the privileged few, and their succession secured by the right of entail. An effort was made a few years since to break up this system, and distribute the lands among the heirs, without reference to any advantages of primogeniture. But the great number of illegitimate children, who came in and urged their claims, rendered the measure a dangerous experiment. It was waived for the time; but unless republicanism here be a farce, it will come back again with augmented force. Freedom and equality are twin-born: they breathe the same air, and share the same destiny. Besides, there is no good reason why a natural child should not share in his father’s estates. It is a hard case, indeed, if he must be made a beggar, merely because his parents have made him a child of sin. Let those who thus err pay the penalty. They have planted the tree, and now let them partake its fruit,—apples of Sodom though they be.

The elective franchise involves no property qualification in Chili. All go to the ballot-box; but few, however, deposite thoroughly independent votes. One portion is overawed by the will of their landlords, another by the will of their priests. The ecclesiastics have every thing at issue in the stability of the existing order of things. A revolution would result in a triumph of the Liberals, and a suppression of all monastic institutions. Even the connection of the church with the state could not long survive. The papal hierarchy would have to provide for its maintenance through voluntary contributions.

The ecclesiastics therefore exert all the influence which their position gives them, to uphold the present government. They look to each man’s vote, and follow it with a blessing or malediction, which throws its ominous shadow beyond this life. This ecclesiastical power is the most fearful feature in the present condition of the Chilians. Instead of being a wall of defence, it is a wide magazine, laid under its foundations, with a train reaching to Rome. One spark from the Vatican, and Chili sinks in flame and blood!

Sunday, March 15. We had to-day at our service a very large attendance from the shore. The weather was remarkably fine; the awning was spread, and we assembled on the spar-deck. After prayers, we sung a hymn in Hamburg, with the band for an orchestra. The sermon turned on the condition of the soul out of Christ: its guilt, its wretchedness, its ruin. Plain and practical sermons are the only ones that do much good. When a preacher forgets the simplicity and meekness of his office, and throws himself, though in a blaze of eloquence, between his hearers and the Cross, he is in a miserably false position. He may win perishing laurels to his fame, but not immortal souls to Christ.

The clergy in Chili exert, through the confessional, an influence which reaches the most private transactions of life. Every communicant is required to confess at least once a year. A refusal to do it is followed by the severest pains and penalties which the church can inflict. Some two years since, a daughter of one of the most prominent members of the legislature of Chili was grossly insulted at the confessional. She told her mother, who, in grief and consternation, related the circumstance to her father. He excused her from going again to the confessional. The year rolled round, and she was summoned to a compliance; the father peremptorily refused his assent. Three of the inferior officers of the church were dispatched to bring her by force. Her father planted himself, armed, on the door-sill of his house, and told them if they entered it would be at their peril. They retired and reported their ill-success to their superior. The next Sabbath she was publicly excommunicated, and her candle at the altar blown out, to signify that her hope of heaven was extinguished.

The father, indignant at the attempt to undermine the virtue of his daughter, and the cruel injustice done her in the act of excommunication, introduced a bill into the national legislature for abolishing entirely the confessional. It produced the most intense excitement; the pulpits of Chili rang with denunciation; the archbishop dispatched a messenger to Rome for the Pope’s anathema. Many husbands and fathers, whose wives and daughters had been insulted at the confessional, and who from motives of prudence had remained silent, now began to speak out. But a repugnance to innovation in ecclesiastical affairs, and the combined influence of the clergy prevailed, and the contemplated law was defeated. But it still survives in the breast of its projector, and will yet speak out in thunder-tones.