The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-10-02

abuse nor insult You canrkick a Pc
ruvian peon and he will smile, the Bo-
| livian servant is afraid that his master
| Is angry with him If he does not thrash
him once or twice month, but the
| Chilean would be likely to resent such
| treatment with stab or blow. These
men all carry knives, and they do not
| hesitate to use them. They care little
| for life, and I am told many Of them
| would Kill man for dollar. On the
| other hand, they are fond Of the men
they work for, and 1t is hard to get
! them away from the estates where
| they were born. Most of them are in
| debt to their masters. They live on
! the estate, getting hut and a couple
| or acres OF ground for themselves and
| being paid from 40 to 60 cents day
for their work. This Is in Chilean sill
| yer, so that their wages are really
from IA to 20 cents a day. They re-
ceive food In addition to their wages,
! but this is only for themselves Their
nrst meal is usually a double hand
1ul or toasted wheat flour, which they
| mix with water to form mush or
| bake In cake. At noon they have a
| ocWI or hot beans, and for supper or
dinner, as they call it here. they get
a second bowl of beans, with perhaps
some more toasted meal added. The
lest TWO meals they eat in the fields
with what extras their wives bring
ground to eat, and their only eating
u1ensll is an iron spoon or, what Is
! more common, a muSSel shell. Still,
| on such food they will work from sun
rise to sunset and will carry enormous
burdens and do the heaviest work
Inc nuts which form their homes
are little better than our pig pens. They
! are usually just high enough to get
INTO and not over fifteen feet square.
Ihelr walls are of wattled twigs, sur
dried bricks, or in the south Of boards.
ana the roofs are usually of thatch
The dirt forms the floor and in many
cases the bed of the family. A box or
TWO and a table is about all the fur
nlture. There are seldom partitions in
TINS one room. The people herd to-
getner like pigs and several families
often occupy the same room.
THEY ALL GET DRUNK.
The chief end of the Chilean rotos'
life is to get drunk. He works only
for this. and nine-tenths Of his kind
are in a state of beastly intoxication
! at least once a week. He stays drunk
and will not work as long as his money
lasts. For this reason Monday is call
ed the "rotos holy day." for he is 50
drunk on Sunday that he has to take
Monday to taper off, The men, women
and children of this class all drink
together. None of them seem to have
any desire to better their condition
and all seem to continue in this state
till they die. The liquor they use Is
the vilest of alcohol, made of potatoes
and rotten vegetables. 1t would, as
one Of their employers says, kill the
ordinary man at a thousand yards.
They gulD this down in great guam
titles and drink, not for the pleasure
Of drinking, but to get drunk.
THEIR TERRIBLE MORTALITY.
The result of their excuses, Of their
poor food and the insanitary condi-
ton of their houses is that the NOR
talty among them is very great. They
breed like Australian rabbits, and
their be bies die like flies. The chill
dren who live are only the strongest.
The peOn child who has constitution
enough to grow up in Chile has con
stitutiOn enough for anything. 1t is
perhaps for this reason that the poems
as a class are as strong as any people
Of the world. 1 have seen them all day
carrying bags of nitrate each weigh
ing 300 pounds and tossing them about
Ike bags of feathers. Four of them
will lift up a piano and trot off with
1t, and in the mines a peon will carry
a bag Of ore weighing $50 pounds up
notched stick that serves as a lad
der all day long. Comparatively few
of them, I am told, have gone through
have wives, and they are, as a rule,
true to them. They are kind to their
old people and always ready to help
one another when in trouble They
have the humoE of the Irish and the
superstition of the Chinese They are
as great fatalists as the Turks They
are as treacherous in their ennity as
the Spaniards, from whom they are
descended, and will stab you in the
back If they are offered the chance. 1t
was thought that the system of COM
mon schools inaugurated by the Chilean
government might attract the peon. 1t
has not done SO to any extent, and to-
day, Of the 100000 people in Chile,
less than one in four can read and
write. Frank G.. Carpenter.