, 1885-12-12
DON pgpaos EXPERIMENT.
Emancipation or tho Slaves His Hobby
Phuanthropic attentions a Failure.
Trio .Janelro Cor Tntar OCEAN,

Emancipation OF tho Slaves His Hobby
PhuanthropIc attentions a Failure.
lRio JaneIro Cor. Inter ocean,
The emancipation of the slaves has
been the old gentlemanis hobby for the
last twenty years, and he has earnestly
desired to see it accomplished before his
death. For lfty-three years that he
has been on the throne of Bra il,
longer than any monarch ever reigned
before, and no man was ever more in
terested in accomplishing an object than
he is in releasing tho negroes of Braz il
from the shackels which now bind
them.
lie has a plantation upon which he has
been e~ndeavoring to demonstrate by
practical experiment that paid labor is
more profitable than slavery. This
plantation was formerly the imperial
residence and is known as Santa Cruz.
1t lies n little beyond the city OF
Petropolis, in one of tho handsomest To-
cations in tho empire and originally be-
longed to the J~esuits, who obtained il as
n grant from the Portuguese govern
ment and erected the buildings; but the
old King Jood, the grandfather Of the
emperor, confiscated it when he drove
the Jesuits out of the country, lived
there and derived an enormous revcnue
from the Fazenda. His son Dom Pedro
| did likewise. The present emperor,
Dom Pedro II, lived there when he was
a 10y and after he was married, but his
first and only son died in the palace,
and its associations arc 50 sad that
neither he 0 the empress have entered
the walls for many years.
This ia tho groaa fbnf tho old amnarOr
has to bear; but he has devoted this
plantation to an attempt to demonstrate
the blessings Of liberty to tho laboring
D. en-. and il is not his fault that his
philanthropic experiment has not sue
ceeded. On this plantation he employs
2,ll0 slaves, and treats them in the
most generous and humane manner,
pro. iding them with neat and COM
modious cabins to live in, educating
their children, giving them all they
want to eat and to wear, and crediting
them with the labor they perform. His
plan has been that the negroes could
earn their own freedom if they had a
chance, and he has a system of book
keeping under which each slave is
charged with his original cost and the
expense of his maintenance, and cred
AAlh WIN AiAN ahiOhhh VI lAbOA hb ICA
forms. When the account balances,
the slave is set free; he has earned his
liberty.
But like most of the emperor's philan-
thropic experiments, this has been a
failure. The plantation has kept him
poor, and has resulted in securing the
freedom of but very few slaves. The
negroes are not fools, and understand
very well that they are better off with
such a master than in the condition of
freedmen, and they have worked so UNI
proitably and made the expenses of
their maintenance so large that seldom
has any one of them ever earned enough
during the year to pay for his keeping,
and during the twenty years that the
emperor has patiently kept up this sys-
TEN it is said to have cost him over
Sc, 900, 900.
The emperor remains constantly at
%Petropolis, and the only thing that can
induce him to come to the city of Rio is
TO attend a debate on the slavery ques-
ton or some official ceremony.