SANTIAGO. 201 



useful very soon, as the gentleman to whom itn collection was assigned was appointed Inten- 



dente oi'('oc|iiimbo almost immediately on his return to Chile. 



!'. -males eonvieted <>!' rime are sent either to the Caaa de Correction (House of Correction) or 

 to the colony at Punta Arenas. The building temporarily serving for the former is a compara- 

 tively large establishment, in tin- ('title delcut yl'/'/".-////r/*, which has been fitted for their accom- 

 modation until one shall he properly built by government. Here also they send women of the 

 town, unruly children, and others who may be reformed by separation from evil disposed asso- 

 ciate, and forced labor. Parents and employers, too, are permitted to confine offspring or 

 servants, whenever they can show necessity for moral reformation in the person for whom they 

 make application a dangerous power, whose abuse, combined with the habits of the inmates, 

 has probably suggested to the poor the nickname of " Casa de Corruption." The inmates are 

 employed in various manufactures, which yield nearly sufficient to pay all expenses, including 

 the rent of the premises. There is also an appropriation for it by Congress. The number of 

 those confined in March, 1852, were: 



Married men 3 Unmarried men and youth* . . . 



Married women 33 Unmarried women and girU .... 119 



Though provision is made by regulation for a separation of the sexes, according to popular 

 belief great immorality still exists ; and it is scarcely to be wondered at when we remember 

 that the class associated there scarcely consider it a sin thus to indulge their passions, and the 

 guards themselves are among the first to set the example. 



A part of an old convent formerly belonging to the Jesuits, and in front of the Military 

 Academy, has been converted into a dwelling for mendicants, who, by municipal law, are not 

 allowed in the streets. Nor is one often annoyed by them there. In one respect the institution 

 is well arranged, married and single having each their distinct portions of the building. But 

 it is far too small ; and in one court even the corridors were literally crowded with human beings, 

 many of whom, wan and emaciated, were lying on pallets. Whole families, whom indolence 

 or disease, or both, had reduced to poverty, were there, living in idleness and (of course) 

 uncleanliness ; a few only employing themselves on trifling articles of handicraft, which they are 

 afterwards permitted to sell in the streets. There appears to be no want of food or clothing, 

 as at the penitentiary ; and the more than 300 paupers are really far more comfortable than 

 their unfortunate countrymen in that establishment. 



The alms-house derives its principal support from donations and legacies left by charitable 

 individuals, many of whom also bequeath portions of their wealth to be periodically distributed 

 by surviving relatives ; and thus on certain days one may find multitudes of the "lame, and 

 halt, and blind" patiently awaiting their customary pittances in the courts of the persons made 

 the dispensers of these charities. On these days not only are the occupants of the alms-house 

 allowed to come out, but many others avail themselves of the occasion to beg from house to 

 house "una limosnita par el amor de I)ios" (a little alms for the love of God). During one 

 of the nights of Holy Week, when the multitudes are making their " estaciones" (visit to a 

 church for prayer) at the different churches, the poor prisoners are permitted to leave the jail 

 under charge of armed sentinels. Placing themselves in the great thoroughfares, as the 

 crowds pass by they piteously implore a mediocito (G\ cents), and clank their chains in the hope 

 to inspire more compassion whilst they attract your attention by the sound. Churches too have 

 their beggars ; most of them sleek, well-fed friars, who pass from house to house with a tawdrily 

 dressed doll in a sort of child's baby-house, ornamented with tinsel and artificial flowers, a 

 picture of some saint, or a bit of cloth. Not unfrequeutly they offer a part of their own gar- 

 ment to be kissed, as they do whatever may be trusted to them, and receive alms in return. A 

 part of them travel on horseback, and others with servants to transport their show-boxes; though 

 the greater number go on foot and alone. These make their visits with a regularity no little 

 annoying to the stranger. One of them who was a frequent coiner to our house during the first 

 live or six months after we were settled, but v. ho, by some good luck ou my part, had never 

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