Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-11-26

Argentine. There are half dozen different
cities in France which are independent
commercial centers. Paris is by no means
all France industrially. She is so artsticai-
ly, socially and perhaps Intellectually.
Buenos Ayres is the political capital of the
Argentine. 1t is its commercial capital, its
industrial capital, its financial, social and
intellectual capital. Politically the most of
the Argentine congressman are Buenos
Ayres citizens. Many of them who repre-
sent far-away districts practice law here.
They live in the city the year round al
though they may now and then go TO see
their constituents. The republic is com
posed of rotten borOughs supplied by
Buenos Ayres men. The result is that
when Buenos Ayres takes snuff the whole
Argentine sneezes.
Industrially. Buenos Ayres has % per
cent of the factories of the republic. 1t has
more than 300, employing over 1000 hands
The great volume of foreign trade now
amounting to more than two hundred mil
lion dollars year, passes through it. $
wholesale houses supply the republic with
goods There are, in fact, only two places
in the observation-disclosures AyreS ana the
Camp. BuenOs Ayres is Buenos Ayres
The Camp is all of the Argentine outside
of BuenoS Ayres.
Commercially and financially Buenos
ANrtS Is the Argentine II mas the banks
which supply the republic with money; big
banks, with fine buildings; banks with de-
pests of from S,G00,000 silver dollars down
Ii had ore with capital of $50, 100000. but
this closed by the failures which
startled the financial world and made the
Barring Brothers tremble. its depostorS
losing S70,0on,00o by it's breaking. Ruenos
Ayres has It's stock exchange. where The
Argentine is bought and sold in parcels.
and where stocks and bonds rise and fall
as Buenos Ayres thinks them good or bad.
On this exchange more than half tilli"n
gold dollars worth of stock was foatei
during the ten years ending in 1889. When
the panic came 90 per cent of the compa-
MES failed, anl most of the shares are n'pw
not worth l per cent of their face value.
Nevertheless, both city and country are in
good financial condition.
AS a social center Buenos Ayres Is the
Argentine. The most of the money made
in the Camp is spent here. The city has
scores of millionaires, nabobs who each
own their half million acres of land and
who count their cattle and sheep in herds
of thousands. They may go to their farms
in the summer, but their winters are spent
in their palaces here, where they give royal
entertainments and pay a thousand dollars
for season box at the opera house.
The Booming Town of South America.
The Argentine is growing fast in popula-
ton. 1t has on its seven league boots COM
pared with the United States. It trebles
its population every thirty years. and it
has more than four million people.
Buenos Ayres grows even faster than the
rest of the country. 1t is jumping upward
at the rate of hundred thousand a year.
1t has now 100000 people and by the end
of the century its people claim that it will
number more than a million. One-fifth of
all the people in this country live in BuenoS
Ayres.
The city grows like a green bay tree. 1t
increases more rapidly than any city in the
United States Long ago it began to take
in all the adjoining territory. When it had
its great boom on the edge of the panic all
out doors was plated out in lots, and
within five years the real estate transac-
lions amounted to about $500 900 900. Still
enough land has been built upon to make
n vast city, and that most solid one.
The houses are not detached ours.
They are built in blocks of four acres each
surrounded by narrow streets. Some of the
sections are crowded that the people
swarm in them like bees In others there
are wide stretches of bare fields. The city
as it is laid out is eleven miles from end
to end, and a ride around it is long as
from Washington to Baltimore. Within it's
boundaries there is twice much ground
as in Paris, and it has a greater number of
stores and business places in proportion to
its population than any town in the United
States. You find stores everywhere. There
miles of them. The reason is that
there are few stores outside. 1t has not
the great suburban population of our cities
shose wants are supplied by their home
= eans, but who come into the city for bust
Buenos Ayres is Spanish city. 1t is
the biggest Spanish-spe"k king city of the
world. 1t is almost twice as big as Madrid
and three times big as Barcelona. Its
Spanish character, however, belongs 10 the
past and it is fast developing municipal
individuality of its own. II will always
have the Spanish language. but the popu-
iation will be a mixture drawn from the
four quarters of the earth. Today more
than half of the population is foreign and
the city itself is fast losing its Spanish
character. The houses on the new avenues,
which have been recently made, are more
like those of Paris than Madrid. The Ave-
nda de Mayo is a wide boulevard, with an
asphalt pavement The buildings Upon it
make YOU think of those of the Charaps
Elysee and there is a total absence of the
fiat low one-story structures of old Spain.
1t is the same with some of the BUSINESS
blocks which have been erected since Buc-
nos Ayres began its rapid growth.
The History of BuenOs Ayres.
The most of the buildings, however. are
low, For a century or so there was not a
two-story house in the city. The town
was laid out in the Spanish style in rec