Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1881 — The Guacho. [ARTICLE]

The Guacho.

San Crauclsco Chronicle. To Paraguay, Uruguay and the ArjjeiitiueConfederation belong the honor or dishonor of having originated the gaucho. In his least mischievous condition he Is a herder of wild in the pampas, living in a round hut,with the skeleton of »-bull,'a. head for a chair a dried bull’s hide for his bed, bull beef toasted at the point of a slick, for his food; His constant companion is a wild horse, the implenjents of his craft a riata and a huge knife, and hjs trade itself the herding, branding, killing and skinning of cattle, now and then spleed by the robbery and murder of a traveler or an associate; At the worst he becomes either a professional robber or a revolutionary soldier, marching under such leadership as the cut-throat Quiroga, or the dastard, Lopez, or the more dashing villain Bosas,to the sack of a city and the overthrow State government. Trained to’acts of cruelty 'and'scenes of bloodshed from his earliest youth,, ignorant of any .alphabet, distrustful of any form of civilization because it restrains hjs brutal passions, he reaches Che years ot manhood as much a savage in all his instincts as the wildes. Indian, and as merciless as a tiger. • ‘ For more than half a century this curious animal hasJtept the etitire region of the Paraguay and Parana In a constant revolutionary ferment under one chief or another. Sometimes be has been formidable enough to threaterv Buenos Ayres. Many'times he has robbed and desolated the smaller cities of San Juan, Cordova, Mendoza, and to this day he is the'terror-cf travelers and isolated ranches all over the great pampas'-Of • South America. It is thought that he could not obtain a footing in-any other country, because bis like had neve?r been seen anywhere else. And the rapid construction of railways on the waters of the Plala, with the consequent great increase of immigrants from Europe, encouraged the hope of the speedy annihilation of bis breed. This waa a" mistake. Like’ produces like.- The same employment which yielded the gaucho .on the Parana and Paraguay has turned out a plenti’ul crop of his kind on the plains of Texas, lhe hills ofrNew Mexico and in the parks of .Colorado/ where the breeding of long homed cattle is thb chief industry of the |>eopje. The Texas gaucho appears to have developed already, though he is as yet hardly out of his first generation, all the worst characteristics of his South American brother. His animal courage is: high. He would rather fight than eat. He ridee miles away to some little railroad town for the sole purpose of fighting, drinking, killing and Smashing thiug’s generally; If he can do no better he fights and kills his companions. Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, and well-dressed fctrahgefs arfe his particular aversion. In his haunts, as at Deming, El Paso and Albuquerque, he is the boss law-giver, aud -wpe unto the Justice ot the Peace or {lie Sheriff or Constable that attempts to curb him.. He herds for another only uatil he can steal a herd of bis own. When, he is on a “spree” and runs short of change, whether in town or country, he puts a pistol to some citizen’s head and de--mands cash. The demand is nearly always honored, in the exceptional cases the pistol goes off and the citizen dies in his boots. He goes by the. name of ‘‘cowboy” in Texas, but his real name is gaucho, and his numbers have so rapidly increased of late that he is about as much above the law in the places of his usual rendezvous as his brother of the Argentines. Quite recently he has been heard from as far west as Arizona, and as far south as Sonora, where the climate has been unhealthy for him. More active railway intercourse will probably interfere with his health in Texas and New Mexico. He will then emigrate into ('hihuahua, Durango and other States of Old Mexico, where the cattle range is good and refuge from justice easy. He is sure, in the end, to become a “revolutionist,” and we shall by and by hear of him as a far more dangerous pest to the authorities of that republic than he can long continue to be on this side ot the line, though where he now is he is the cause of more murders and flagrant outrages than all the surrounding tribes of wild Indians.