CRIME IN BUENOS AYRES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 371, 8 July 1874, Page 3

CRIME IN BUENOS AYRES.

Crime in Buenos Ayres seems to have reached a pitch which calls for the serious intervention of the authorities. The London daily " Standard " says : — Tho capital of the Argentine Republic would appear to be just now one of the least; desirable [places on earth for those who are in search of a quiet neighborhood. It is hard to say whether it is worse for a man to be absolutely inoffensive and neutral or actively engaged in the profession of politics, jußt as it is difficult to pronounce whether the assassins or the police are the most dangerous. The last file of papers from Buenos Ayres contains such a list of murders, outrages, and acts of violence, as perhaps never was paralleled in the monthly record of any city pretending to be the abode of civilised men. Even Virginia City, in the flower of its rowdyism, must have been a Paradise in comparison. Let us take a few cases from the local journals. In Socorro .parish, a peasant gets into an argument with two companions, and uses his knife on tliern with such effect that one dies on the spot, and the other has " a side of his face sliced off." The murderer, on being arrested, shows his dexterity before an admiring crowd by flinging his bloody weapon into the air and catching it by the handle as it falls. Two Italians dining at &/onda in the Calle Chile come to high words, the discussion terminating in one drawing a dagger and the other a pistol, whereupon the landlord promptly intervenes by firing all the six barrels of his revolver at the man of tho dagger, who is carried away to the hospital with three bullets in his body. A political dispute in a corner of the street between two partisans of Mitre and Alsina concludes by both drawing their knives and wounding one another, whereupon a policeman appears, who is chased off the ground by the combatants. A young man taking the air in the Plaza Retiro is accosted tby a soldier of the lino with an invitation to the barracks. On the way thither the soldier draws his bayonet and foils his new acquaintance after relieving him of 120 dollars. A peaceful Austrian walking quietly through the street is taken by the beard, by a "ruffian well-know to the police," who gives him a slash across the throat with a knife, and then buries it up to the bilt in his body, averring when arrested that he was " only amusing himself." Another papor speaks of an awful murder having been apparently committed at the corner of Calles Florida and Parque. " Wo saw the blood running down the gutter, aud a horrid mass of it at the corner." For some inscrutable reason the vendors of milk are the favorite objects on which the assassins practice their art. " Murdering milkmen," says the "Buenos Ayres Daily News," "is now quite fashionable, and reflects little credit on the police authorities connected with our highways and byways." A band of ruffians, of whom it is not said that they have complained of the article dispensed by their victims, or that they are influenced by a misguided zeal in the cause of anti-adulteration, are said to make a constant practice of waylaying, robbing, and murdering all milkmen that they can patch unawares. In order to protect themselves while engaged in their livelihood, which seems to be even more precarious in Buenos Ayres than in St. Pancras, the milkmen have formed themselves into " caravans " in order to save their throats and pockets, but "whenever one or two straggle from the ' posse ' down pounce the cut-throats, and murder follows " " The paper which records these outrages gravely adds that " if this kind of thing is permitted to go on property will fall in value, and no one will care to live in a place infested with ruffians who are constantly robbing and murdering people in broad daylight?' Another paper, •averring the number of- robberies and out- . rages to be positively frightful, recommonds ;*ll decent people not to go out after nightfall, <or ■waen>tfiejr do bo to go armed to. the teeth.,.