ely families, whose ancestors had been
reigning sovereigns for a thousand years, had been obliged to set up the
images of his haughty forefathers in a community of Republicans, because
his own people despised and hated him so much that they could endure him
no longer, was not of a character to arouse noble thoughts in the mind
of the beholder.

* * * * *

We have before called attention to the great and rapidly increasing
importance of the South American Republics, and, while there seems to be
no prospect that our proximity to them will be of any commercial
advantage to us, some of our young architects and skilled mechanics, who
speak Spanish, might perhaps find profitable employment there. At
present, the most prosperous city is Buenos Ayres, which, from one
hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants in 1870, increased to four
hundred and sixty thousand in 1888, and has gained very rapidly within
the last year. We must confess that our own ideas of Buenos Ayres still
retain a reminiscence of gauchos and lassoes and buffalo, but this grows
fainter as we find illustrations in the foreign papers of the newer
buildings going up in the city. The last we have seen is of an enormous
dry-goods store, after the model of the "Bon Marche" or the "Printemps"
in Paris, which is known as the "Bon Marche Argentin," and covers at
present ninety thousand square feet of land, while thirty-five thousand
feet adjoining have been secured, and are to be used for the enlargement
of the present building which will soon become necessary. There are said
to be a good many architects already in Buenos Ayres, but first-rate
mechanics are, or were not long ago, so scarce that the municipality
imported plumbers under contract from London to do work on public
buildings.

CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.--I.[1]

The term Civil and Domestic Architecture includes all public and private
edifices, that is to say: honorary monuments, such as triumphal arches
and tombs; buildings for the instruction of the public, such as museums,
libraries and schools; houses for public amusements, as theatres,
amphitheatres and circuses; structures for public service, as
city-halls, court-houses, prisons, hospitals, thermae, markets,
warehouses, slaughter-houses, railway-stations, light-houses, bridges
and aqueducts; finally, private dwellings, as palaces, mansions, city
and country residences, chateaux and villas.

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