A New Yorker's View of the War

In the July 21, 1879 New York Times, Jacob Wrey Mould, a prominent New York architect, expressed his opinion of the war. Jacob Wrey Mould was born in England but now lived in New York. He worked with Frederick Law Olmstead in designing many of the edifices in New York's Central Park. In Lima Peru, Mould was building a mansion of freestone and Philadelphia brick for Mr. E.C. Dubois, subcontractor of Henry Meiggs and brother-in-law of Auguste Dreyfus, the Paris banker. Mr. Mould recently returned from South America and provided New Yorkers with his own assessment of the situation there.

In Mould's opinion, the Peruvian soldiers were brave, amenable to discipline and good workers, but the Peruvian officers were notoriously incapable and corrupt, fit only to wage a war of words and profit without exposing themselves to danger. Mr. Mould reportedly called the murdered Pardo "an egotist as well as a knave", that corruption pervaded all sectors of the government. He explained that the Roman Catholic party controlled two-thirds of the wealth and supported Nicolás de Piérola. Viewed by some as reactionary and nonprogressive, Piérola was, in his opinion, the most liberal and progressive statesman in Peru, a believer in popular education, native industries and internal improvements and a strong supporter of foreign investment and the development of natural resources.