pecuniary transactions one with the other; they are reported to have been friendly and charitable, always ready to assist a poor adventurer from the old country, or a needy friend, whenever he presented himself.
The houses of the affluent teemed with idle domestics and laughing loiterers, whose coarse merriment bespoke contentment and plenty; and the beggar, who sat in the back-court and corridor (the walls of which are still beautified with painted flowers and landscapes) to enjoy the cool of the artificial fountain, or who rested himself on the benches of the tesselated porchway, laughing with the merry fellows that were about him, felt not the miseries of pauperism; for, wherever the Limenian mendicant seated himself, there he was happy, and partook cheerfully of the abundant surplus from the rich man’s table, which was liberally bestowed on the poor.
But, generally speaking, delicacy of sentiment or refinement of education did not belong to the Spanish colonists; and though they acquired wealth by their moderate industry, reared costly edifices and churches, endowed convents and monasteries, and paid for numberless masses; though they befriended the poor, and filled their welcome guest’s cup to overflowing in a land of milk and honey; yet, be it spoken with candour, their summum bonum seems to have been something like a good Mussulman’s paradise.
The natives of the country still avow, that though the Spaniard, who used to come to their shores as an adventurer soon to be incorporated into their domestic circle, was seldom a polished or intellectual character, nevertheless he was usually a man of integrity and some industry, or, to use their own words, “brusco, pero recto y trabajador.” Besides, the women, whom we in general allow to be good judges in every rank of life, continue to bear witness that the Spaniard makes a good husband and a kind father of a family—“el Espanol es buen marido y buen padre de familia.” But, to merit this encomium from the fair sex on the shores of the Pacific, let it be borne in mind that austere virtue and severe self-denial are not always expected or required in the husband.
Those educated foreigners who frequent the rounds and “tertulias” of Limenian good company—which we take as the best criterion of refinement in that country—have had occasion to regret, that women of the most elegant manners, ladylike mien, and unimpeached character, are despoiled of no small share of the outward illusion of their charms, and appear to lose much of the moral loveliness of their sex, by an unconscious licence of speech, that cannot fail to appear faulty in the opinion of those to whom long habit has not yet rendered the style familiar.
We have pleasure in bearing our humble evidence in favour of the great pains, and cost, to which mothers now put themselves in educating their daughters; and it is incontrovertible, that the rising generation are about to come on the stage of active life, with many advantages of instruction which were not enjoyed by their parents. But, granting it to be true, that these interesting young ladies may have considerable advantages over their predecessors in the knowledge of French, geography, music, a little drawing, and a chaster fashion of dancing, still, we are apprehensive, that in more humble and useful domestic education not a little is wanting: and this important defect, we conceive, is not to be remedied by expensive teachers, or by the routine of boarding-schools; but, if we mistake not, by good example at home. To improve the domestic education in the female part of the community, it would be necessary to detach young ladies as much as possible from the customary attendance of old favourite “zambas;” who, there is much reason to believe, teach them at an early age to pry into the private weaknesses of their seniors, and excite in their quick, comprehensive minds a degree of attention and curiosity which, when indiscreetly called forth, seldom fail to bias their inclination to vices that may on some occasions be deemed hereditary; and thus open a door to a series of indulgences which, in the long-run, prove the bane of their own ill-sought happiness, as well as the wreck of many a fond parent’s hopes, too blindly placed on a daughter left to the daily tutorship of intriguing domestics.
The ladies when young, and long before they become marriageable, are taught to anticipate their own omnipotence at fifteen, which little girls of seven or eight years of age already reckon to be the approaching era of their perfect felicity; for the Spaniards say “No hay fea de quince,”—All are fair at fifteen. There is also among these gifted women, whose superiority, as a body, over their own countrymen is always admitted, a great “esprit de corps,” so that the greatest sinner among them is never left without a gentle voice to plead her cause, and palliate, when she cannot exculpate, a sister’s errors.
This forgiving system runs through every class and rank, from the highest to the lowest; but it is in the lofty circles that its influence is most worthy of particular notice. No one ventures to throw the first stone at the unfortunate; and there insensibly arises a gradation of vices and virtues, dove-tailing into each other so as to constitute a social whole, wherein the different degrees of moral deviation are all shaded by an overflowing charity. Pleasure and vice are nearly allied, and unhappily he who assumes the clerical habit and tonsure is not, in his own person, always a stranger to the voluptuous enjoyments of those around him; and the example of the man who rules the conscience of the people—who grants them absolution, and allows them indulgences,[7]—will naturally be imitated: hence the indulgence of public opinion as regards individual and private character in Peru.
The slow and partial administration of justice is loudly complained of by those whose affairs require them to frequent courts of law in the Peruvian capital. The turbulent independence of the bad and disorderly, uncontrolled by any active and faithful police, is every day increasing, and already puts justice at defiance. The impudence, ill-acquired pecuniary influence, and intrigue of the false-hearted and boasting patriot, are daily seen to assume the embroidered insignia of “un benemerito de la patria!”—an honour which only in equity belongs to that rare character—the genuine patriot, who knows how to sacrifice his private convenience to the public good. The judges are often left without pecuniary means consistent with their honourable calling, because their salaries are not duly paid by the government; and if, under these circumstances, the balance of justice be disturbed in its equilibrium, the blame must not be all laid to the charge of those public functionaries who are the appointed ministers of the laws. The truth is, that, for a considerable time back, the sums that entered the national treasury were too scanty to support the pageantry of military array, together with the accumulated expences of a destructive and demoralizing warfare; and the pecuniary embarrassments arising from these circumstances, involved in their consequences some drawbacks in the civil administration of justice. But another popular cause, and that to which we would desire to draw the attention of the reader, for the unequal distribution of justice, is by common consent allowed to be, that in the best, as even now in the worst of times, the fair sex in Lima have enjoyed, from date immemorial, a more than regal prerogative, which the convulsions that effected what is called their political freedom, have in no essential particular obliterated or changed. It is called Empeño.
This tacitly constitutional instrument of clemency, although in the hands of women naturally inclined to mercy, may, when misguided, operate against the vital interests of the community; and by it the true ends of legislative enactments may, from time to time, be frustrated. This prerogative is put in practice especially by certain genteel-looking young women, who are neither married nor single, but who, in the language of the indulgent matrons of the country, are allowed to be, though not married, highly honourable and gifted—“No es casada, pero muy honrada, muy prendada:” and a lady of this quality seldom loses favour, or a good place in society, so long as she has a calesa or carriage in Lima, and a rancho or bathing-lodge in Chorrillos. Let us now suppose that this lady, attired in her national, or rather Limenian, dress of saya and manto,[8] desires either to plead some advantage or indulgence for another, or a favour more particularly for herself—and that for this purpose she employs the blandishments and flow of persuasive language at her command. The gentleman, thus softly assailed by so eloquent and attractive a being, unwisely listens until he is entirely at his magician’s bidding. This spell is what is vulgarly meant by the gigantic and overgrown prerogative termed in Peru empeño. But we must not forget to mention, that this ascendant power is very commonly promoted by a certain spiritual influence, in which both married and single partake—namely,
