There are four daily newspapers in Lima, in which are published cablegrams from all parts of the world. They are edited with ability, but their writers indulge in the grandiose, florid style that sounds very funny to the plain-spoken American. One of the editors was sent to jail and fined five hundred dollars, besides having his paper suppressed, for making some reflections upon the acts of Congress; but as soon as he got out of prison he started another paper, and he is now blazing away in the most fearless manner, just as if the penitentiary were not half empty and the Government in need of convict labor. The papers make their appearance on the street about ten o’clock at night, and are cried by newsboys, who make as much racket as our own. In the morning carriers deliver copies to regular subscribers. Advertising patronage seems to be pretty good in Lima, for the newspapers have about two pages of display “ads.” to every one of reading matter; but they do not get good rates, and times are so hard that the merchants give very little cash, but require the editors to “trade it out” in the country fashion. Advertising is always an index to commerce, and the condition of Peru is illustrated by the fact that almost every merchant in Lima is selling out at cost--_gran realization_, they call it. Credit is not given at the stores except to the Government, and that is compulsory. The foreign merchants will not sell to the authorities except for cash, and the native merchants do not want to, for only in one instance in a hundred are they ever paid. All the houses in Lima are built on the earthquake plan--either of great thick walls of adobe, or mere shacks of bamboo reeds, lashed together by thongs of rawhide, and plastered within and without with thick layers of mud. This style of architecture will answer in a country where it never rains, and where cyclones never come, but if a good pour should fall in Lima, much of the town would be washed into the river Rimac and carried out to sea. There is never more than one entrance to a house, and that is protected first by a great iron grating, and then by solid doors. The windows are covered with bars. This was done as a precaution against bandits in early times, and against revolutionists in later days; and a very essential precaution it has been, for during the time of the viceroy bands of robbers came down from the mountains, and hordes of pirates from the sea. Through the single entrance passes every one who comes and goes--the butcher, the baker, the priest who comes to shrive the dying, and the young man to whom Mercedes is engaged.