wound upon a Mr. Oxley, and shattered
in the most dreadful manner the thigh of Senor Pizarro, a man of high
birth and breeding, a porteno of Buenos Aires. This frightful accident
recalled the people to their senses, and they began to act a little
less like madmen than they had previously done. They elected a
vigilance committee, and authorized persons to go to The Junction and
arrest the suspected Spaniards.

The first act of the committee was to try a Mexicana who had been
foremost in the fray. She has always worn male attire, and upon this
occasion, armed with a pair of pistols, she fought like a very fury.
Luckily, inexperienced in the use of firearms, she wounded no one. She
was sentenced to leave the Bar by daylight,--a perfectly just decision,
for there is no doubt that she is a regular little demon. Some went so
far as to say she ought to be hanged, for she was the _indirect_ cause
of the fight. You see, always it is the old cowardly excuse of Adam in
Paradise,--the _woman_ tempted me, and I did eat,--as if the poor frail
head, once so pure and beautiful, had not sin enough of its own,
dragging it forever downward, without being made to answer for the
wrong-doing of a whole community of men.

The next day the committee tried five or six Spaniards, who were proven
to have been the ringleaders in the sabbath-day riot. Two of them were
sentenced to be whipped, the remainder to leave the Bar that evening,
the property of all to be confiscated to the use of the wounded
persons. O Mary! imagine my anguish when I heard the first blow fall
upon those wretched men. I had never thought that I should be compelled
to hear such fearful sounds, and, although I immediately buried my head
in a shawl, nothing can efface from memory the disgust and horror of
that moment. I had heard of such things, but heretofore had not
realized that in the nineteenth century men could be beaten like dogs,
much less that other men not only could sentence such barbarism, but
could actually stand by and see their own manhood degraded in such
disgraceful manner. One of these unhappy persons was a very gentlemanly
young Spaniard, who implored for death in the most moving terms. He
appealed to his judges in the most eloquent manner, as gentlemen, as
men of honor, representing to them that to be deprived of life was
nothing in comparison with the never-to-be-effaced stain of the vilest
convict's punishment to which they had sentenced him. Finding all