The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-17

press is free; public education Is free. There
are grammar schools and primary schools,
mercantile academies and lyceums. Upwards
Of one hundred eriodicals-literary, scientific,
and politioal-are published there. There are
learned societies and large libraries public and
private, in the principal cities, The educated
classes are Influential in society, Religious
federation is established, though the Church
Of Rome is the instituted faith; and there was
n time when its priests labored hard, and not
unsuccessfully, for the instruction of the
people. spirit like this diffused among the
ruling and influential class, could not fail to
bear steadily against the system Of negro
slavery. on 'ss' la fHeigou IeIH7 q T
Then, too, the Brazilians, appreeiating the
value Of fresh blood in their populations, vel
coined foreigners to their country, and offered
handsome inducements for Europeans and
others to come and live among them. Bxten-
sive grants of land were made under the pre-
sent Emperor's administration, ON condition
that one hundred thousand people would set
tie on it within an allotted time. The one
hundred thousand did not come but many
thousands did,, mostly Germans and Swiss,
who formed industrious and thriving colonies
in different parts of the country. The instinct
of freedom was in all of these They were
centres of civilization. Lines of commuuica-
tion and transport soon became necessary,
and were no sooner necessary than they
we've laid. Public roads were made rail
ways were projected on a large scale steam
boats were built; loans were negotiated:
European capital secured powerful com
panes formed and chartered and ina
provements of immense magnitude went
bravely on, under the direction of the best
English and American engineers. How was
slavery to stand in the face of this For
there were no North and South, as with us,
but the spirit of the Government made it ali
North. r.a r-ro... ...--a.r I.-r ,f .fs..,.r
In mild and moderate fashion, too, the
Government which meant the people who
possessed an annual income of fifty dollars
and upwards, has long shown itself opposed
to the slave system. The Portuguese, finding
the native Indians unfit, and therefore un-
profitable as slaves, let them go, after long
experiment in cruelty, and imported negroes
from their African possessions. The slave
trade houTished, as it did everywhere. 1t
hourshed in spite of protests and treaties.
The young Emperor was crowned in 184l.
I -Four years after his coming to the throne,
stout old England declared that her laws
/ against piracy should control the seas, and
that all captured slavers should be amenable
to them. Brazil, after a little bluster, gave
in, declared the slave-trade piracy, and in
few years pronounced it extinct. The present
Emperor signed its death-warranti in 1852.
But this is not all. Slavery itself in Brazil,
owing to general causes, has been of a milder
form than we have been accustomed to know
it in our own Southern States. 1t did not
spIing from, nor did it produce the spirit of
caste-that most deadly of social evils. In the
army and navy, in agriculture, commerce,
manufactures, trade, color was no obstacle to
success and distinction. 1t did not make civil
or social position untenable or precarious.
The laws favored manumission; and manu-
mission was often publicly celebrated by reh-
gious services. Once emancipated, the negro
found himself not legally alone, but practically,
as far as ability would allow, on an equal level
with the whites. All this made the abolition
of slavery easy. The work was already more
than half done before the final measure was
| proposed. The coup de grace alonei was want
ing. All this, too, insures the full results of
benefit from the act. Between their new world
and the old there is no terrible middle pas
| sage for the blacks to pass through, as there
is with us. They enter at once into the rights,
| duties, and privileges of civilized men. The
| details of the emanipation act are as yet pro-
vokingly meagre; but we can scarcely doubt
that they recognize the manhood of the former
slave, as a property holder a landowner,
citizen in sight of the laws, a person with
career before him. There is no necessity in
| Brazil for the Civil Rights bills, the Military
Reconstruction bills, the Freedmen's Bureau
| bills, and other protective measures which Re-
| publican America has been obliged to resort to
| in order that the blacks may enjoy the COM
monest human consideration. They can fall
| back at once on their manhood, and justify
themselves. 3 4la
| To be sure, the emancipation is limited.
| None are free now but adults. The children
born to-day will be free when they are twenty
| years old Such proyiso here would have
| given occasion to the utmost anxiety and
alarm. But it need cause no uneasiness in
| Brazil. Here, to say slavery may exist
twenty years would probably have been equi-
| valent to saying it may exist forever. But
| there, it is equivalent to saying it shall i'm
mediately pass away. The certainty of free
| dom on coming of age will make the youth
of these slave girls and boys a very different
| thing from what it was BEFORE They will be
| slaves in name only. All around them the
men and women of their race will be living as
free people live, in condition of full enfran-
chisement, at once exhibiting and perfeotng
| the state into which their sons and daughters
! are to come. The young serfs win belong to
| their owners to treat them as future free
men, to be kind to them, to win their good
| will, to teach them, and in all possible ways
| to make their path smooth. 1t will not be
! strange if laws are passed in few years dis
| pensing with this proviso altogether Con-
| siderations of property no doubt secured its
| introduction into the measure. But a slight
| experience of the benefits of full emancipation
may perceptibly weaken considerations of that
| kind. Slavery has been improbable in Brazil
| ever since the suppression of the trade. And
| the new cultivation that has been intro
| duced into the country, vastly to the adyan-
| tage of its foreign commerce, must reduce
| still further the value of slave labor, and make
/ property in slaves undesirable. Emancipa-
| tiOn will remove the stigma of disgrace from