Why you shouldn't let your animals loose on the street in 1890s Uruguay

2 hours researching, 2 hours writing, page count = 201

Continued with the background reading on party systems, incorporating some new data into that section, which includes a cross-regional comparison of electoral volatility, or the opposite of party-system stability. Colombia, as expected, is on the stable of the spectrum, and even more stable than some of the Southern European countries. But comparing two sets of data, it appears that the immediate trend, not just in Colombia, but in Latin America generally, is toward more volatility. I still don't understand how the Colombian party system fell apart so spectacularly 10 years ago, but perhaps the more relevant question is how it held together so long in the first place.

Also did some research on the police in Uruguay, which is turning out to be a pivotal comparison case. One of the sources was a police manual from the late 1800s. Normally, these are very dry compendia of regulations, but this one had an alphabetical list of things that were prohibited, by subject: "Animals--to let them run loose on the street. Games of chance--to play them." Presumably these were so officers would know what behaviors they had to punish. I'll have to go back and copy some of them down, they were great. "Blog entries--not to go on too long." Si señor!