The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-23
THE M1sFORTUNEs or BRAZIL.

THE MLSFORTUNES or BRAZIL.
EMpEHoH PEpRo just now must be, like
s'Othello, ''perplexed in the extreme" The
Paraguayan dictator at bay in some undis-
covered fastness, is exhausting at once by
persistence the power and patience Of his
army and his ally and the imperial treasury.
An English steamer, in attempting to leave
Rio with foreign resident aboard who had
not published, according to the requirement
of law for the protection of creditors, his in
tention of departure, has been fred into by
Fort Santa Cruz, and compelled to return to
her anchorage ground. And Minister Webb,
having several times before threatened to
leave, has finally turned his back on the de-
hghtful villas and semi-tropical luxuriance of
Gloria and sailed for home, as fully charged
with diplomatic choler as any battery of
Leyden jars is with electricity
And the war in Paraguay, which was to
have been finished with the capture of the
fortresses, and was said certainly to be fin
ished with the occupation of Asuncion, still
drags its slow length along The victorious
allies fingered at the deserted capital to play
at a make-believe government which fed
both sexes, manned, sick, and superannuated,
for their fealty. Then the old Brazilian Field
Marshal in a fit of spleen, turned over the
command of the forces to a subordinate an 4,
without any leave Of absence having been
accorded him, returned to Rio The sue
cessor of Caxias has in turn been succeeded
by an imperial prince, who is now at the front
as commander-in-chief,a and directing the
march towards the interior, which has begun
rather disastrously with the destruction of a
Brazilian cavalry regiment.
Whatever of selfshness may have entered
into the motives that led to this crusade
against Lopez, and whatever of retribution
within the allowed limits of modern warfare
may be meted out to him by the allies if they
succeed, his humiliation, if not his destruc-
ton, will be in the interests of humanity and
civilized progress. Doubtless the atrocious
rigor with which he has governed a singu-
larly docile and courageous people-an
Indian race early trained to habits of unques-
tioning obedience by the Jesuits-has been
exaggerated by enemies who barely escaped
the fate of victims; but the testimony to the
terrorism of his utterly irresponsible govern
ment, and to acts of malignant personal
savagery, from intelligent and reputable
foreigners, and even on the admission of his
own officers, is cumulative and irrefutable.
He belongs to an inhuman crew of little
Hispano-Indian despots, as represented pre-
eminently by his own father, Rosas, and
Francia, who have long been the curse of that
vast and exuberant region watered by the
Plata and it's tributaries. Relying upon sub
jects whom he robbed, tortured, and executed
at pleasure, but who were trained into an
anomalous and fanatical devotion which could
exist only among savages with a rudimentary
| culture, he treacherously armed himself, in
the security of insincere compacts, for pur-
poses of aggression and aggran izement. He
sought north, west, and south Tor fresh terri
tory, that he might subject it to his desc
lating rule and aflict it with his narrow
policy. His Paraguayans have fought with
an imposing intrepidity and suffered with a
stoical endurance. But they have been COM
| PEELED to surrender to and recede before
superiority in numbers and the appliances OF
military science. Much more than half of the
fighting population of the country is supposed
to have perished in the field, in the trenches
by disease and famine. And perhaps at this
time there remain to the Dictator not ovel
three hundred thousand subjects, spared by
the devastation of wantonly provoked war, in
the entire State
After all, in the contemplation of the human
misery and vast desolation of Paraguay
the ruler of Brazil will probably not be dis.
posed to hawk his sorrows in too loud key.
Though he may be threatened again with
arrogant demands delivered from behind
British guns pointed at hispalace, and though
he may feel eclipsed by cloud of diplomatic
disfavor, he still has the consolation of
beautiful capital, a quiet people, and pros
porous empire.