Show RAMBLES IN LIMAI Some Other Sights of the Old Capital THE VICISSITUDES OF ST MARKS A Visit to the Senate Chamber and the House of HepresentnthesQueer Customs and Traditions LIMA Peru Dec 1 1S90 Special correspondence respondence of THE HERALD First lot us look in upon the Peruvian senate chamber and hall of congress The former as beforo mentioned is the old council room of the Inquisition and in the very place where the presiding officer sits an inoffensive looking little gentleman with a clawhammer coat and hair parted in tho middle the stern lackgowned inquisitors used to pronounce their awful sentences upon trembling victims vic-tims To reach the threehundredyearold building we cross the Plaza do Bolivar in which many heretics which name included eluded all who were at variance with the reigning powers temporal as well as spiritual were burned to death and where thousands merely suspected men and women have been publicly scourged Most of these deeds of darkness however occurred curred before the beginning of the present century for tho Inquisition was abolished in this country about 1812 This plaza con tains a notable statue one of the two or three that the Chilian army left to Lima out of tho many fine works of art that once adorned it representing Simon Bolivar the liberator seated on a plunging steed inn in-n impossible attitude something like tho equestrian statue of General Jackson in tho United States capital THE NATIONAL CONGRESS holds its sessions in the long narrow and somewhat dim and dingy apartment that for three centuries was the chapel of St larks university the very oldest temple of learning in the western world the Liberal Lib-eral government confiscated from the church in JbG9 J Spectators are penned in avery cry narrow gallery high up above the heads of the representatives and the latter are ranged like so many tolerably wellbe laveu school boys all around three walls of the room in two rows of chairs without desks Near the centre of the fourth side is placed a long table at one end of it sits the presiding officer and at the other a tall cross is fixed upon which the congressmen are required to swear that they will support sup-port the constitution Between the crucifix and senor presidento are a number of clerks and reporters and among them a few are scribbling away in shorthand as industriouslY as do their cousins in Wash ington Whenever a formal speech is to bo made the orator mounts a little platform which has a sort of pulpitdesk upon it but ordinary debates are participated in by members from their respective chairs who seldom take tho trouble to rise while speaking speak-ing The most interesting things about this place pertain to THE PARAWAY PAST One remembers that this college was bunded sixtynine years before the Puritan Puri-tan Fathers sought our northern shores The first steps toward it were made by the authorities of Lima as early as 1550 when they dispatched Tray Tomas do San Martin who afterwards became the bishop of Jhuquiscac in company with Pedro do la Gasca one of the first governors of Peru over to Spain to apply for erection of a cler ical temple of learning in the new country Tho Emperor Charles V and his wise mother Juana not only granted tho desire decree conceded to university which they ordered to be established at Lima all the prerogatives enjoyed by that of Salamanca Sala-manca Pope Pius V confirmed its erection ay an especial bull and the learned Dr Don Gaspar de Meuesis became its first rector Still the university so nobly begun was without a suitable building or oven a site for its foundation until the year 1574 I when a piece of ground was purchased for I it near the parish church of San Marcelo I and hence the college derived its name San Marcus The site however was Found to be inconveniently distant from tho centre of the city so it was sold another purchased near TilE PALACE OF THE INQUISITION and the present building complated about three hundred and fourteen years ago It consists of a great courtyard surrounded sur-rounded by cloisters on the walls of which queer frescoes are painted supposed to represent rep-resent the arts and sciences Doors lead from the cloisters into the various lecture rooms and into the great hall of the university univer-sity where still hang the portraits of the most learned men of Perus earlier days The first fullfledged D D who was graduated here was Don Domingo do San Tomas a Spanish Domincian who afterwards after-wards attained great local celebrity whose ugly countenance may still be seen in the great hall The first graduate born in Peru was Don Juan do Balboa professor of the Quichui language and canon of the Lima cathedral The cultivation of literature during the time of the viceroys though confined by a jealous priesthood within the narrowest possible limits made considerable progress and was advanced by several men of learning learn-ing and ability sprung from the noblest families of Spain Perhaps the most scholarly schol-arly of all the vicekings was Senor Don Antonio de Mendoza a grandson of the Marquis do Santillana the renowned ple and warrior of the court of John II who claimed the Cid as the founder of his family But Don Antonio died in 1551 after a very brief enjoyment of his power and before ho had much time to do more than lend his mighty influence toward the establishment of this university Sinco Perus independence from Spain and the general emancipation of the minds of her people POETRY PAINTING AND MUSIC have received great attention from the imaginative im-aginative but somewhat frivolous youth of tho country But the truth is that the modern society of Lima is too dissipated and artificial to afford very promising soil for the growth of extraordinary genius in any direction The beneficent institutions of Lima though not numerous are certainly very creditable Prominent among them is the Sociedad de Beneficencia which was es tablished in the year 1825 and has tho gtn eral guardianship supervision of ail the public charities It also has tho direction of the bullring the cock pit and the lottery lot-tery from which popular amusements it derives a considerable share of its revenue Private individuals frequently subscribe tit t-it generous sums matrons occasionally getup get-up a swell Chairty Ball much as the same thing is managed in the United States and other parts of the world and sometimes some-times the belles and beaux of the city give a grand concert for its benefit principally with the music of mandolins and guitars in which they excel Here comes ono of the sights of Lima A FEMALE MILK PEDDLER who sits astride her mule with a bare foot and a tin can dangling on each side of the saddle These milk men in petticoats neither toot a horn nor ring a bell as do their northern brothers but riding from house to house they stop at the door teach > t-each customer and give a peculiar shrill little scream which the servants instantly recognize Tho quart measure of this one is a gourd just as it grew except that a holo has been cut in one side and the seeds scraped out but whether nature made it the exact size to contain what the law recognizes rec-ognizes as a quart wo need not trouble ourselves our-selves to enquire if tho customers do not Indeed that form of measurement is not much in vogue here for liquids as by the pourdful or still more commonly by the bottleful Manufactured tinware is dear and the people are poor but everybody drinks wine consequently glass bottles such as ordinarily contain claret and hold perhaps three pints thereabouts abound Many dealers have a fixed price on milks and other fluids for the bottleful and tl16 gourdful who would be puzzled to know what it ought to bring by the quart or pint You would hardly bo able to guess where some of tho cows are kept that lurnish the milk of the city not all of them but a few Nowhere else than ON THE TOPS OF SUBURBAN HOUSES I As the roofs are perfectly flat the common people utilize them for all manner of purposes pur-poses notably for henneries pig syes dog kennels gardens where flowers and vegetables veget-ables grow in boxes laundries and even barn yards A recent writer on this subject says lIn many cases a Lima cow spends all her days on the roof of her owners residence idence having been taken up when a calf and brought down at the end of her life as fresh beef In the meantime she is fed on alfalfa tropical clover and tho slops from the kitchen Chicken coops are still more common on the roofs of dwellings and in the thickly populated portions of the town your neighbors cocks waken you at day light with reminders of Saint Peter Going to the central market we find it is as spacious and convenient as any in New York or any other northern city The squares of Lima are very large and this market covers a whole one including part of the old convent of Concepcion which vas forcibly appropriated by the government govern-ment and the nuns ejected in tho year 1851 at the imminent risk of a revolution i THE MARKET HQUSE PROPER is built around a great open courtyard with exterior shops and an inner corridor and is traversed by wellpaved pathways radiating from a big fountain in the centre This arrangement forms a series of small courts and each is appropriated to especial products The principal dealers have stalls but > the mass of venders who aro women of lowest degree squat all day upon the pavement at the edge of tho galleries or on the ground in tho open spaces with their fruit or fish or vegetables or whatever it may be heaped up in flat baskets or on mats spread before them in small piles alfed montons Each nipntoii has a fixed price whichever which-ever varies whatever the fluctuations of the market but the rise and fall of the commodity is marked by the size of the wnton a little more or less as the case may be for the same amount of money As do their confreres in other parts of the world they chatter like magpies with one another and with their customers perhaps per-haps nursing their babies the while or performing forming other less pleasing maternal duties The children of the market begotten born and reared on the spot begin to tumble and sprawl aboutin a very promiscuous manner man-ner as soon as they havo gained sufficient strength and in duo course of time tako to the vocation of their parents as naturally as ducks to water Many of these market people spend their lives hero and know no other home eating and sleeping on the ground THERE ARE TOUR DAILY PAPERS published in Limabesides several periodicals periodic-als devoted to society matters and general literature Most prominent among the latter lat-ter is a finely illustrated and well conducted weekly called El Peru IHusfiadoowned and pUblished by Mr Peter Bacigalupi who is by all odds the most enterprising North American it has ever been my fortune to meet As heis a very prominent character in Lima and his career illustrates what foreign brains and energy may accomplish among these slowgoing Peruvians I went ono day to interview him So busy a mans man-s Mr Bacigalupi flying here there everywhere every-where attending to his dozens of irons that are all in the Sro at once it is no easy matter to find him or when found to pin him down to conversation But nersever anco accomplishes it and here is the result He was born in New York city in 1855 and consequently is now thirtyfive years old Though ho never went to school after the age of thirteen he speaks French Spanish German Italian and English equally well When thirteen years old he was employed by the New York Equitable Life Insurance company in some humble capacity where he remained six years Then ho drifted to California and at the age of twentytwo married a young lady in Oakland Less than a year later after a breezy tiff with his motherinlaw he left in haste and sailed for South America Landing at Cal lao early in April 1878 ho had exactly four dollars left in his pocket and that was stolen before night Ho found employment employ-ment immediately and before many months became the confidential clerk of Mr E D Adams a prominent merchant of Lima formerly from the United States Mr A ams was so accommodating as to die I soon afterwards leaving Mr Bacigalupi in i charge of tho business and within the year he married his late employers widow a Peruvian lady who then had five children They now have a beautiful home and the number of olive branches has increased to nine In 1SS4 the old place of business was destroyed de-stroyed by fire but nowise disheartened Mr Bacigalupi set up again in a better location lo-cation and since then the amount of his sales has been something phenomenal His goods are mostly from the United States and comprise THE GREATEST CONGLOMERATION ever collected underone roof For instance he has a large stook of books and station cry drugs soaps lamps clocks silverware silver-ware jewelery sewingmachines typewriters type-writers photographic outfits agricultural implements in short almost everything imaginable except dress goods Sandwiched among these are Peruvian curios from mummies to ancient pots and idols Besides Be-sides his enormous trade as a forwarding commission merchant whoso ramifications ramifica-tions extend in some shape or other to almost al-most every part of South America the United States and Europe he is himself a photographer of no mean ability and his agents are everywhere making those scenic views that travelers delight to purchase He has long had the Peruvian agency of tho Domestic sewingmachine company and commenced business the first day by selling 150 machines to tho President of the republic who distributed them among the poor widows of soldiers who fell during the last war Since then he has sold thousands of machines He is also agent for the Rem ington typewriter and has sold a good many of them in Lima He introduced the first telephones into Peru and they are now in general uso He also introduced the first AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHIC OUTFITS and in his place one may buy the Kodak the Hawkey Scovills or almost another an-other During the lato war Mr Bacigalupi purchased pur-chased two vesesls one of American mateo called YoungAmerica the other English named Union and fitted them upas men ofwar Through their agency and by the help of tho Monitor he managed to make another fortune in coal and pickled pork Last year he built an opera house on the spot where the old theatre vas burned It is capable of seating two thousand thou-sand persons and it is one of the neatest daintiestand most complete little theatres on tho continent Its builder loves to boast that he put it up in sixty days employing seventyfivo workmen and personally stperintending the use of every inch of 150000 feet of lumber Mr Bacigalupis main business however the others being mere outgrowths and side issues is that of a printer and lithographer In his establishment establish-ment ten Gordon presses two large Campe presses and a lithographic press all moved by the only gas engine in Lima are kept constantly going Sixtyiivo men and boys are employed in tho printing department six of them being Americans from San Francisco and Mr Bacigalupi is expert in every detail of tho business from typesetting typeset-ting to lithographing His Peru Illustrad has been a great hit being the only periodical period-ical of the kind in South America It is a thirtysix page something the size and shape of Judge but not at all inclined to the comic It is profusely and well illustrated published everv Saturday and goes to < every part of Peru even to the village of MayoBauba to reach which requires a thirty days journey on mule back To conclude in Mr Bacigalupis own words In my office may bo found all the newspapers published in South America and many from tho United States and Europe Strangers are welcome to look at them whenever they like and my doors arc always open to Americans residents or tourists whetherthoycome business or to kill time and we are glad to furnish them with any information in our power respecting the country and its resources I consider Peru a very promising field for energetic Americans and would advise any with small capital to invest it somewhere in this continent Of course some capital is necessary toestablish any businessany where but a little goes much farther here than in the overcrowded United States I may add that Mr Bacigalupi looks k much more like the typical Spaniard than 1 an Anglo Saxon being rather small and very dark with intensely black eyes set in so handsome a face that it is no wonder ho wealthy widow Adams married him offhand off-hand THE OTHER NEWSPAPERS OF LIMA are edited with considerable ability and contain telegraphic news from all parts of ho world besides choice selections and ho effusions in prose and poetry of local literary lights but their editors have a grandiose and flowery style in wide if not ludicrous contrast to the terse plainspoken ways of American journalism Most of the papers make their first appearance upon the streets about 10 oclock at night and their names are yelled by the newsboys with all the vigor of Now York gamins Late in the morning carriers deliver the same edition to regular subscribers As an index to the state of trade it may be mentioned that the newspapers have about two pages of ads to one of reading matter but I am told that the rates are very low and tho merchants require editors Ito trade out the amounts FANNIE B WARD |