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must have a booklet of identity, issued by the police and duplicated in the public archives. This document is so essential that, though I spent less than three months in the country, I found it advantageous to apply for one, for there is a simpler cédula de identidad for non-citizens. The temporary resident, and even the citizen, may "get by" for a time without this little volume, but the day is almost sure to come when he will regret its absence. Of two men whose public altercation chances to attract the attention of the police, the one who can produce his libreto is far less likely to be jailed than the one who cannot. The chauffeur who has an accident, the man who is overtaken by any of the countless mishaps which call his existence to the notice of the public authorities, is far better off if he has been legally registered. Moreover, the citizen can neither vote, apply to the government for any purpose, nor exercise any of his formal rights of citizenship without displaying his booklet. This contains the photograph, a brief biography, verified by other documents or testimony, the signature, and the thumb-print of the holder. The argentinos have carried the use of finger-prints further than perhaps any other nation. Even schoolchildren taking formal examinations must decorate their papers with a thumb-print as a protection against forgery. Both photograph and cédula are produced by a well-trained public staff in well-arranged public offices, in which the prints of all ten fingers of the applicant are filed away under the number inscribed on his libreto, and where courteous attendants bring him into contact with the lavatory facilities which he requires before again displaying his hands to a pulchritudinous public. In addition to the essentials contained by all booklets, that of the citizen has several extra pages on which may be inscribed from time to time his military and civic record.

The argentino is in no such breathless haste to know the result of his elections as is the American. The newspapers of the morning following an important election carried many columns of comment on the aspect of the capital and the principal towns of the provinces under

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of the still unfinished grounds when the count had been verified.

The people of the Argentine, and particularly of Buenos Aires, have much the same feeling toward the "madre patria" as the average American toward England, forgiving, though perhaps still a bit resentful of the past, now and then aware of the common heritage, on the whole a trifle disdainful. The Porteño never says he speaks Spanish, though his tongue is as nearly that of Spain as ours is that of England; even in his schoolbooks he calls it the idioma nacional.

But the argentino is still largely Spanish, whether he admits it or not; he is

distinctly of the Latin race, for all the influx of other blood. The types one sees in his streets are those same temperamental Latin-Americans to be found from Mexico to Paraguay, a more glorified type, perhaps, more in tune with the great modern moving world, almost wholly free from non-Caucasian mixture, larger and better nourished, and with the ruddiness and vigor of the temperate zone. But they have much the same over-developed pride, the same dread of bemeaning themselves by anything suggestive of manual labor. No Porteño of standing would dream of carrying his own valise from station to tramway; even the Americans sent down to set up harvesting machinery on the great estancias cannot throw off their coats and pitch in, lest they instantly sink to the caste of the peon in the eyes of the latter as well as those of the ruling class.

The prevailing attitude toward life, including as it does an exaggerated pride in personal appearance, gives Buenos Aires a plethora of labor-fearing fops whose main purpose in life seems to be to create the false impression that they are the scions of aristocratic old families of uncomputed wealth. Physical exertion, even for the sake of exercise, has little place in the scheme of life of these dandies, of the majority of youths even of the genuinely wealthy and patrician class. Of late certain influences have been working for improvement in this matter, but are still hampered by the awkwardness of inexperience as well as laggard costumbre. Out at Tigre, a cluster of islands and channels some miles up the bank of the Plata, young men of the class that would pride themselves on a certain expertness in all sports in the United States may be seen rowing about with the clumsiness and self-consciousness of old maids, their shirts bunched up under their suspenders, their bodies plainly uncomfortable in the trousers inclined by the dictates of fashion, as well as by the unwonted exertion, to climb to the chest, the occasional young woman in the back seat sitting stiffly as the model in a corset-shop window.

The feminine sex of the same class does not, of course, yield to the males in the matter of personal adornment. At

the races, along the shaded drives of Palermo of an afternoon, above all in the narrow Calle Florida a bit later in the day, fashion may be seen preening itself in frank self-admiration. In the material sense the Calle Florida is merely another of those inadequate streets of the old town, four or five blocks back of the waterfront, and given over to the most luxurious shopsjewelers, modistes, tailleurs de luxe. But Florida is more than a street; it is an institution. For at least a generation it has been the unofficial gatheringplace of the élite, in so far as there can be any such in so large a city, taking the place in a way of the Sunday night promenade in the central plaza of smaller Latin-American towns. But the day came when the narrow callejón could no longer contain all those who demanded admission to the daily parade and mutual-admiration party, and the intendente solved the problem by closing the street to vehicles during certain hours of the late afternoon. There is still a procession on wheels from eleven in the morning until noon, given over particularly to débutantes ostensibly on shopping tours, although invariably flanked by long lines of gallants and would-be novios; but the principal daily Corso is now made on foot, and admiring males may without offense or conspicuousness pass near enough in the throng that fills the street from sidewalk to sidewalk and end to end to their particular ideal to catch the scent of her favorite perfume. Nor does that require any undue proximity, for the most circumspect ladies of Buenos Aires see nothing amiss in making an appeal to the olfactory senses which in other lands would lead to unflattering conclusions.

The gowns to be seen in such gatherings are said by authorities on the subject to be no farther behind Paris than the time of fast steamers between French ports and the Plata. To the bachelor more familiar with the backwoods they seem to be as thoroughly up to the minute as their wearers are expert in exhausting every possibility of human adornment. Unfortunately, many of the ladies prove on close inspection to be not so beautiful as they are painted. Not a few of them could readily pass as

physically good looking, despite the bulky noses so frequent in "B.A." as to be almost typical, were they satisfied to let nature's job alone. The most entrancing lady in the world would risk defeat by entering a beauty contest disguised as a porter in a flour-mill. There are, to be sure, ravishing visions now and then in these Buenos Aires processions, but unpolished candor candor forces the admission that what to us at least is the refined and dainty type is conspicuous by its rarity in the Southern metropolis.

The gaudy ostentation of this nouveau-riche city of Latin-Iberian origin is nowhere seen to better advantage than at the Recoleta, or principal local cemetery. It is a crowded cement city within a stone wall, as much a promenade and show-ground as a last resting-place. Men sit smoking and gossiping on the tombs; women take in one another's gowns with critical eye as they turkeywalk along the narrow cement streets between the innumerable family vaults. The tombs are built with the all too evident purpose of showing that one's dead are, or at least were in life, of more importance in the world than those of one's neighbors. As in the case of the houses of the living in Buenos Aires, the names of architect and builder are cut in the stone or cement of the tombs, much as a merchant forces customers to advertise his wares by wrapping their purchases in paper extolling the virtues of his shop; but there is no such definite indication of the cost, which one is expected to gather from the outward appearance of the sarcophagus. The boasted "artistic sense" of the Latins certainly does not guide the Porteño in the disposal of his dead;

Recoleta

testifies rather to the paucity of a sense of humor in even the best of LatinAmericans, unless we of the North are mistaken in supposing that it is preferable not to parade one's sorrows and demonstrate one's family importance in this fashion.

soon discovered that the Porteño is not a particularly pleasant man with whom to do business. To begin with, he is overwhelmed with a sense of his own importance, of that of his city as the really greatest, or at least soon to be greatest, city on the footstool, and seems constantly burdened with the dread of not succeeding in impressing those importances upon you. There is fully as great an air of concentrated self-sufficiency in Buenos Aires as in New York, a similar self-complacency, the same disdainfulness of anything or any one from the insignificant bit of backwoods outside the city limits, with a frank attitude of disbelief in the possibility of ever learning anything from those uncouth fellow-men who have the misfortune not to be Porteños, and with it all a provincialism scarcely to be equaled off the Island of Manhattan.

Perhaps the most striking evidence of American influence I ran across is the eagerness to "boost" population, as if there were virtue in mere figures, even though those be false. The national census was taken during my sojourn in the republic, all on a single day, by the way, and the method of computing the population was not one to cause it to shrink. Not only was every foreigner, even those who happened to be spending a few hours crossing the country, included, but orders were issued to count all argentinos living abroad, through the consuls, and all persons of whatever nationality at that moment under the Argentine flag, whether on the high seas or on steamers far up the Paraná and Uruguay rivers quite outside the national jurisdiction. Then placards were posted announcing to any person within the republic (evidently for months afterward) who had not been counted on June first that he must come to town and present himself before the Census Commission-and no doubt wait in line for days, to be finally insulted by a score of perfumed young government hangers-on and added to the already swollen

In my daily rounds as "errand boy" I list of ciudadanos argentinos.

The Husband of Carmen Maria

By L. M. HUSSEY

N the prison Ismael Blanco used to fill the void of the creeping hours with memories of his wife Carmen. He would think of everything he knew of her, of every act he had shared with her; for in the prison he was dead, and the only life he could live was the life he found in his recollections.

They were the recollections of a man who has lost something from his apprehension of reality; they had a measure of the quality of dreams. Thus, he did not mourn Carmen with the acute grief of a recent parting. He had not seen her for eight years. He had been in prison for nearly seven and saw no prospect of release. Political prisoners are not sentenced to a definite term of years in his country. They stay in the jail until they die of disease or some accident releases them.

Ismael was fortunate, if the preservation of his life was a fortunate thing, to be a political prisoner. In reality his station was that of a common soldier, and he should have been shot; but at the time the guards were stupid with alcohol, and that saved him.

Seven years before he had fought with Pío Sierra. That chief, in the moment of his temporary success, established his capital in the Ciudad Bolivar, with a steamboat on the Orinoco that brought him in his arms and supplies. Cuidad Bolivar existed as the new capital for six months, and all the while Sierra talked with high, sweet words of "the conquering march of liberation and humanity" -that is, the march northward to the classic city of Caracas.

A march was made in the end, but not by Sierra; it came to the south from the north, the government forces, and the champion of "liberation and humanity" fled in his steamboat to Trinidad. Many of his followers were less fortunate. Although most of the common soldiery escaped, those made captive were shot.

On the day of the collapse Ismael Blanco was acting as orderly to one of Sierra's new governmental ministers. All the morning the simple-minded orderly watched his master with envy and admiration. The Excellency was disinclined to work. Distantly the noise of the battle entered the large room where he sat at his desk, but he heeded it less than the annoying buzz of great, vociferous flies that darted about his head.

Ismael, seated in a corner of the room with nothing to do, nursed a knee with his large hands and watched the Excellency smoke many enormous cigars, as if they were the sweet, vaporous fuel of his languid life. He envied the Excellency his fine, educated aplomb, and even more than the virtues of his personality envied him the magnificent clothes that he wore like a god.

In the isolation of his former village life Ismael had never seen such clothes. The black broadcloth coat with pendent tails fascinated him like a miracle of nature. He felt that, dressed in such a garment, he would be another man, as if the coat could confer a new soul.

Even when the firing drew nearer the Excellency lost nothing of his poise. In the end he went to the window and looked down into the street. He remarked to Ismael, the orderly, that soldiers were running in the streets now and that a small boy just had the misfortune to be trampled under foot.

The Excellency turned from the window with a frown. He walked back to his desk, and from one of the drawers Ismael saw him remove a small bag that jingled with money. Without haste the great man adjusted his dress and put on his hat.

"You are to halt any one who attempts entrance to this room, in the name of the Provisional Government," he told the orderly. Then he went to the window again.

Ismael, standing in his corner, saw the pane of glass break as if from the blow of

an invisible fist; the glass tinkled to the floor; a curiously irresolute air came into the Excellency's pose. It was almost as if he had lost a bit of his substance, as if his clothes had become suddenly too large for him. Then he tumbled back to the floor. There was a blot of carmine widening out on his white shirtfront. He was quite dead.

Ismael ran to the door, intending to escape at once. Then, his hand on the knob, he looked back. His eyes glistened with a swift, fascinating idea. A longing about to be fulfilled shone like the light of revelation in his face. He returned to the still body of the dead man, rolled him over on his back, and, laboring quickly, stripped off the magnificent coat. He slipped it on at once, over his torn, cotton jacket. It made him grotesque, like an outrageous scarecrow, but he was proud and happy. How Carmen would hug him when she saw him in such a coat!

Without that delay occasioned by his vanity the young soldier might have. made his escape. As it happened, he was struck down as he left the house, and when his consciousness returned, he found himself herded in a room in the same building with several dozen other captives. Out in the hall he could hear their guards walking up and down.

The established Government acted, it was thought, with magnanimity and humanity; they did not order a wholesale execution. Officials, politicos, were spared for prison, only the common soldiers were shot.

Those in charge of the executions were instructed to sift out the captives carefully. But the guards were celebrating the victory by drinking up all the abominable aguardiente their money would buy. When the time came for choosing, the guards of Ismael's party were hilarious and care-free. They saw Ismael in the magnificent, the splendid coat. He was, obviously, no common soldier. Before evening of the next day he was in a cell with the politicos.

At first he was glad to escape with his life, for he was young, and the tenacity of life was an instinct. But the relief he found in salvation was quickly replaced by a dull hopelessness. For the first time in his life his natural capacity for

resignation was insufficient, and he questioned life, and felt emotionally, inarticulately, that life had been unjust to him.

He recalled his forced service in the defeated army. He had known no need for liberation, and humanity as a generalization was meaningless to his mind. They did not persuade him by the logic of high ideals to engage upon the fated enterprise of liberation and humanity; they took him without argument, as a beast is taken in traps.

He was pounding up dried corn between a small and large stone when the soldiers appeared, coming up like pirates from the river. A ragged lieutenant looked at him, nodded his head in satisfaction, and half a dozen unceremonious fellows, persuaded previously by the same method and finding a perverted justice in the business, poked their dirty guns into his flesh and ordered him to move along.

As they forced him down to the river his Carmen Maria ran screaming back of them, her long, black hair waving behind her like the pennant of a desperate hope. Then when, looking back with a dumb glance he saw her last, she had stopped, and stood up on the top of the little hill, motionless, sculpturesque, her cotton dress, in disarray, falling half down from her dark shoulder, and dropping into limp folds about her body, like a symbol of her resigned despair.

It was not in this picture that Ismael found it best to think of her during the years when his old reality was superseded by the prison death. He thought of her in joyous moments; he thought of her sturdy kisses and the embraces of her plump, strong arms. She was the sort of woman he could truly admire, because he admitted her cleverness, which was greater than his own, and knew that she was strong, like something wild and quick from the forest. He knew he had been envied in his possession of her.

Sitting in his cell, he would think of his luck in getting her, the fortunate fellow he had been; and then the face of his self-congratulation would change, as if by a malign, inevitable magic, into the wonder and deep surprise of his separation. His simple faiths could not cope

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