City of a hundred bells
Montero Ríos thought that Santiago, at the end of the 19th century, was a city in which “there is an archbishop, a seminary and a hundred bells”. There was an abundant secular clergy that served the 10 parishes of the city. Some 50 churches, in addition to numerous chapels, each year hosted the celebration of some 68,000 Masses addressed to a population that was then around 24,000 inhabitants. They were the daily echoes of the “hundred bells” that this city had in operation.
