Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-11-23
THE ODDITIES OF RIO JANEIRo.
A Place Where Everything Appears to
Go by Contraries.

A Place Where Everything Appears TO
Go by COntraries.
The COW is said to have been the origi-
nal surveyor of Boston, says a
Rio letter to the Pittsburg ChrOnt-
c~le-Telegrdph, and the narrow and
| tortuous streets of the Athens OF
America are pointed to with pride by the
Athenian Yanks in attestation OF the
truth of the assertion. Who the original
surveyor of Rio was is neither known nor
c~onjectured, but the chief engineer OF the
extension of the city during the last fifty
years, up and down the mountain sleeps
and along the rocky lodges, presumably
has been a goat.
The Italian peddlers of Rio, like the
jacks Of a euchre deck, go in pairs. In
this way, in traYersing a street, each gets
the benefit of the others din, by hammer
ing on a pan if he be a tinker, or by clap
ping two sticks together if he be a dealer
in dry goods and notions. or by shouting
if he be a vender of glass or the like. And
when the right bower can not be played
and a wash-bOiler disposed of advan-
~tageOusly, haply the left will be able to
sell a spool of cotton and take the trick.
A window without a woman in 1t is eX-
ceptional in Rio. And a sociological con-
sideration of the City of the Royal Palm
without a woman in it is impossible.
The Fourth Of July of Brazil is Sept. Z.
The Cora Pearl of Rio is Susanna. She
has one of the toniest turn-outs in the city
a carriage lined with white satin, a pair
of moldy-lOOking mules, a white liveried
driver, and other symbolic signs of purity
about her, but the very stones in the
streets cry against her for all that.
The plaster of paris image maker OF Rio
will not sell his simulacra of Christ and
the saints-nOt he; for that would be a
gross sacrilege; but he will swap them
for as much sinful lucre as may be agreed
upon between the party Of the first part
and the party of the second part.
The beast of burden, of even more COM
mon use than the mule, in Rio is the
human head. A single head is employed
in carrying everything in weight hom a
box of matches to a barrel of flour, and
IN shape from q pumpkin to a pig, While
four are taken generally for a bureau and
six for a piano. AS with the mule, Varia-
lions in color occur, but while a pinkish,
mOld-colOred mule is preferred to the rat,
the mouse, the milk, the tar, and the pie
bald, a sable head generally is regarded
the best, requiring the least padding and
insuring the hardest knocks, as we'll as
being the most willing and showing dirt
the least. In carrying burdens up and
W. ~ IN 0kOAAC Gb@AAA " ~ - &AOAAE kAC RA1~
cipitous lodges, and INFO the intricacies
of the labyrinths in which the kitchens
are located, it is invaluable.
Every garden in which there is anything
that can be hooked or DESTROYED has in
front u high fence of iron, with a gate
locked at night, on the sides and in the
rear a stone wall, backed like q fretful
poTcupine with tr0ken bottles.
The baker of Rio distributes his bread
in a great quadrangular basket, which is
borne by the common beast Of burden, the
human head, and which is lined with a
blanket Of a color so fiery that, seeming
ly, only fresh and warm bread can come
from its folds as if from the very oven in
which IL has been baked.
A large house in Rio is labeled, in large
letters, "Fabrica de Flores Orphana-
~lOgica." Whether it is-but what better
can be expected in a city that is called a
river? All, Juliet, with your simple ques-
ton, "What's in a name? "-you little
dreamed Of the WEAKNESS that would re-
salt to the spirit of the world and his
wife to the end of time in their e%ndeaVOrs
to answer it; otherwise, long before you
did, you would have swallowed the fatal
draught.
The measure Of the responsibility of a
funeral in Rio is the number of mules in
the hearse.
1t never rains in Rio but it pours, and
when it p0urs it makes the street cross
ings at the foot of the hills impossible to
polished shoes and boots. But the bane
of one is the benefit Of another. The big
negro who has been out Of work for a
fortnight now finds a fortnfght's work
compressed into a few hours carrying gen.
tlemen aud ladies from one island to an
other of the municipal archipelago.
The advertising fiend has found his way
into the most retired Tecesees Of Rio.
When a stranger, with his soul athirst for
music and his stomach for beer, enters
the Passeio PublicO in the evening and
sets his mugs m~Omentarily on the marble
top of the table before him, his eyes, in
following it, happily fall on the footprints
Of the fiend in the form Of an advertise
ment of soap or castor-oil, that converts
in an instant the concord of sweet sounds
in his ears into a saw-tiling and q cat
fight, and the nectar of the German gods
in his stomach into a combination of bilge
and bile.
Whatever may be the vices of the Bra
%sileirO, he is not a ~drunkard; and what
ever may be those of the Brasileiro, she
ia NOT a smoker of tohaPpO-