Though Quito has a population of about sixty thousand, it has had for a long period considerable note as a place of art in sculpture and painting, and has several public-schools of ordinary grade, and three universities, in charge of the priests, yet it has never been a field in which literature thrived, or the business of printing flourished. It contains no newspaper, and but one weekly journal is issued. This is the oficial paper, and is devoted solely to the publication of official documents. Its circulation is about one thousand copies, exclusively among government and foreign officials, and is gratuitous. The principal printing establishment is owned and managed by the Government, in which twenty persons are employed. Among its material are one rotary press (on which the official paper is printed), five hand-lever presses, and a good assortment of type. No work is done except for government use. There are five other small printing concerns, each employing from two to six persons, at which is done the miscellaneous printing of the public. They use nothing but hand-lever presses. The presses and type were purchased, in the United States. Revolutions in Ecuador are frequent, and they usually begin by an attempt to assassinate the President. The plan of procedure is usually for the discontented political faction to create a mutiny in the army, either by bribes to the officers or promises of promotion. As the private soldiers always obey their officers, like so many automatons, and are as willing to fight on one side as the other, to secure the officers is to secure the army. The next step is to seize the barracks and arsenal, put the President to death, proclaim some one else provisional dictator, and then call a junta, or convention, to nominate “a constitutional Executive.” Señor Caamaño seems to bear a charmed life, for during his term of four years as President he had numerous remarkable escapes. The last attempt to assassinate him was in January, 1886, while he was journeying from Guayaquil to Quito. He was riding, as travellers usually do, by night, to escape the heat of the sun, when his small escort was attacked by a band of mountaineers, and fled, leaving the President to look out for himself. He jumped from his horse, ran into the forest which lines the road, and creeping through the trees to the river, swam to the other side, and made his way, thirty miles on foot, to the hacienda of a friend, where he knew he would find refuge. For two days and nights he was in the forest without food, and when he finally reached a safe haven was totally exhausted. For a week or ten days he lay ill with a fever, but couriers were sent to Guayaquil and Quito who arrived there before the reports of his assassination, and assured the officials of the Government of his safety. At the same time a mutiny broke out at the military garrisons in both cities, but was quelled, and the leaders summarily shot.