The police under the care of the Political and Police Chief (jefe
politico y de policia) of each department and depending on the
Executive power employs a great many persons, the wages of which are
relatively very small. However, the police service goes on with a
perfect regularity in the capital and in the departments. The whole
police administration costs half a million to the state.
Army.
The organization of the Uruguayan army is perfect, as well in regard
to the discipline as in regard to the military tactics. They are
dressed as well as the best European soldier. They use the Remington
gun; but they are going to be provided with the reformed Mauser
gun. The artillery regiments have 67 Krup, Armstrong and Nordenfeld
cannons.
The army is composed of 23 chiefs, 202 officers and 3,425 soldiers,
forming 10 battalions, that is to say: 4 Hunters battalions, 1
artillery battalion, 4 cavalry battalions and 1 light artillery
battalion, besides which must be counted the general Artigas fort
garrison and the "Prague Nacional" or Arsenal detachment.
One Hunters Battalion and the four Cavalry ones serve as garrisons in
the departments. The other battalions remain in the capital.
Navy.
The national fleet is employed for coast and fort guarding. It is
composed of three large gun-boats and 6 small steamers. They all use
Remington guns; as for the cannons, they belong to various systems.
Montevideo, the Capital of the Republic.
The great maritime town of Montevideo, the capital of the Republic
and the so-called department, was founded in the year 1726 by the
Spanish marshal Don Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, with some Spanish
families, who came from Buenos Ayres and Canary Islands.
The town is built over a rocky peninsula, in the middle of the salt
waters of the River Plate, with a height of over 100 feet above the
sea.
It is actually divided into three large sections called the Antigua
(old) town, the Nueva (new) town and the Novisima (newest) town. All
around the town will run the great boulevard General Artigas. The
whole town consists in 1,600 _manzanas_ or square cuadras, more than
600 of which are already edificed; it must be added that every day
new buildings are begun everywhere about the town. In all directions
new streets are opened and new houses are built and new suburbs
created, making Montevideo larger and larger every day.
The streets are all straight and nearly all of them well paved with
granite stone. In the old town they are 10 and 11 metres wide and in
the new town 17 metres, with broad pavements and trees planted on
both sides.
The principal roads that lead to the town are broad, part of them
covered with a bed of macadam and the others with a bed of stones.
There are six public squares, called, Zabala, Constitucion,
Independencia, Libertad, Treinta y Tres, General Flores, and the
smaller ones called Solis and Muelle Viejo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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