The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-01
The COnventiIIos of BuenOs Ayres,
Their Bad Sanitation Features
and Curious Inhabitants.
FACTS rs TO TRADES-UNlONS
THE FEMALE SCHOOL TEACHER AND
THE TELEPHONE GIRL.
The GauchOs or Cowboys of the PAM
pas: Who They Are, How They Look
and Live, and Their Fighting.
copyrighted. 1885, by Frank C. carpenter)

copyrighted, 1888, by Frank G. Carpenter)
BUENOS AYRES, Nov. 25.-I have writ
ten of high life in the Argentine Republic.
The country has it's low life as we'll. Its
poor are in the great majority. 1t has tens
Of thousands of people who live in zinc
sheds, and there are courts in Buenos Ayres
about which men, women and children
swarm thickly as they do in any tene-
ment section Of New York or London.
Rents are very high in Buenos Ayres. Only
the rich are able to have houses to them
selves. The well-to-do live in flats, and
apartments and the poor are crowded into
conventiIlos. Convenhllos are a popularity
of Buenos Ayres. They are immense build
ings of one or two stories running around
narrow passages or courts and containing
scores upon scores of one-roomed homes.
Each room is the living place for one or
more families, and in most cases it has so
many inmates that the washing and cook
ing must be done outside in the court. These
one-roomed homes are without ventilation
except from the front. They have no light
but that which comes through the doorway,
and their sanitary condition is bad beyond
description
IN THE CONVENTILLOS.
You find these conventillos in every part
of Buenos Ayres. They exist under the
shadow of the government mansions. Some
are to be found on the by-streets of the
business sections, and there are others back
of the palaces Of nabobs, each of whose in
comes runs into more dollars per week than
any one of the inhabitants of the conYen-
tillos receives in a year. Take one, for in
stance, which l lately visited under the
shadow of the Grand Opera House. I had
just come from the box office where l saw
score of men paying SIG seat for the
next nights entertainment, and where one
man had laid down a thousand dollars to
Fay for his family box for the season. The
colvemtillo was entered by door from the
street. Passing through this, / came into a
court, six feet wide and about two hun
dred feet long. This was walled with q two
story building, made of rooms about twelve
feet wide and not much more than twelve
feet deep There was a gallery along the
outside Of the second story, and the two OPP
posite walls were so close together that the
stone tagging of the court ooZed with
moisture. 1t received but little sun, and
there was a damp, green mold on the stones
not tramped by the tenants feet Opening
upon the court from each room was a door,
and the rooms had neither light nor venti-
T..
Just outside each room in the court was a
bowl or box of charcoal This formed the
cook stove of the family within Upon some
of the fires rested pots of steaming soup,
with ragged Italian women bending over
them. There was q pOrtly, gray-haired
Italian dame in one doorway, cleaning q
cabbage, and next to her / saw lean
woman with Spanish face cooking maca-
mi fGar. ri fIar of f1,,r,c,
fourteen, was washing clothes, while under
the tub her dirty baby sprawled on the stone
and squaled. The most of the people in the
court were Italians, and many of the wom-
ell were very young. The Italians of Buenos
Ayres develop young, and you may read any
day in the papers the records of marriages
of girls of fourteen. Big families are the
rule, and several of those in this court COM
prised I was told. as many as ten children
Father and mother, grown-up sons and
daughters, children and babies, all sleep in
space not over fifteen feet square. Many
rooms have one bed which is occupied by
the parents ana as many children as can
crowd in, and the rest must sleep on the
floor. There is no way of heating the rooms
They made me think of caves rather than
the homes of human beings and most of
them were quite as dirty as the average
cave. Notwithstanding this, the children
seemed to be generally healthy, although l
heard one mother grooming away over her
sick baby, her sad lullaby mingling with
the strains of the singers who were prac-
ticing comic opera in the great theater
over the way
The death rate, however, is not so high as
it IS in some European cities. The climate
of the Argentine is excellent and the last
general census taken showed that there
were then living 234 persons who were over
one hundred years old. A large proportion
Of the population is made up of Italians
Spaniards and French immigrants, the Ital-
ians predominating. The latter have an an
nual birth rate of sixty per one thousand.
which is 80 per cent. higher than the aver
age birth rate of Europe.
THE POOR OF THE ARGENTINE.
The working classes of the Argentine Re-
public are largely foreigners. The native
poor do little more than herd cattle. The
real work of the country is done by the
Italians and the Spaniards, furnished by
the stream of immigrants which is always
flowing from Italy and Spain to the lower
parts of eastern South America. Within the
past twenty-four years about 100000 emf
grants have been imported from southern
Europe, and to-day out Of the 4,000,0 600 peo-
pie in the Argentine Republic it is esti-
mated that more than one in every four is
foreigner. The railroads are built by the
Italians, although the English furnish the
money. / am told that they make splendid
workmen. They are thrifty, economical and
generally happy They send a large pro-
portion of their wages back to Italy, just as
our Irish do with their wages in the United
States. The Italians are also the small
farmers. They work wheat lands, many
of them taking tracts to farm on the shares.
They are as a rule thrifty and accumula-
tive. and many who have come poor have
amassed fortunes. The fact that a man
lives in squalid quarters is not a sure sign
that he is poor for in these very conv 1ntil-
los / am told there are Italians who have
nice little properties. but who prefer to save
and starve for the time in order to be the
richer hereafter. The Italians are the
masons, the carpenters and the mechanics
of the Argentine. They are very apt at
trades and viii work for much lower wages
than those of the United States. They can
live more cheaply than our people. Many
OF them virtually have but one meal a day
which is eaten after they have stopped
work in the evening. They take nothing
but q cup OF tea and a piece of dry bread