Laborers receive a sum equal to about twenty
cents of our money for a day's work, and carpenters about fifty cents.
Food of coarse quality, however, is supplied by the employer.
Owing to the decrease in the population--which, as before stated, is
composed almost altogether of women and children--and the simple life
of the people, the importations into Paraguay are limited to a few
articles. Of these products of foreign industry, the observer may see
exposed for sale in the shops coarse cotton goods and hardware of an
inferior quality, both manufactured in England; boots and shoes, the
former of which are worn chiefly, of Buenos Ayres make; and ready-made
garments of linen and poor cloths. The imported liquors and articles
of food are principally a small quantity of sugar, lard, wine of an
execrable quality, and Hamburg gin, together with a few boxes of
candles and some oil and soap. To this list of imports must be added
the inevitable Chinese fire-crackers, without which noisy accessories
no Paraguayan holiday would be complete. Throughout South America a
passion for fire-crackers and fireworks prevails; and as an example of
this mania, M.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35