, 1886-03-12
IN RIO DE JANElRO.
PECULIAR STREET NOMENCLATURE
OF THE CAPITAL OF BRAZIL.

Night Scenes Along the Crowded Thor.
oughfare-A Nation al Gomez Drinkers
Use OF Intosicants-In "A Barber-shop
Horse csrs-Love Of Music.
Nothing in Rio strikes an American as
more singular than the nomenclature OF
the streets. Many of them, such as the
Seventh OF September and thu First OF
March, are named after days on which
something mo one seems TO know exactly
WHAT has taken place. There is enc mar
row little throughfare called the street of
the Good Jesus, and the names OF the salnt
are freely used. IL seems a trihe singular
10 be directed to No. % First of
March street, or for a man to live
at the corner of st. John the Bap-
fist and st. John the Evangelist streets.
but the Brazilians don't mind it. The prin-
cipal street is the celebrated Rua do Ouyi-
dor. II Is a narrow little alleyway In which
two carriages could not pass each other.
In fact | never saw a carriage In the street
and doubt if a ariver would be bold enough
to venture there. Here are tile shops Of
the principal merchants and the gorgeous
stores OF the artifcers of feather flowers
and the dealers in gold and silver and
precious stones.
STREET scRNEs-coFFEELLIQuoRs.
Vt night, from one end TO the other. the
the street Is flled with people, not on the
narrow sidewalks only, but completely III
ing the t~horoughfare from wall to wall.
Officers OF the army and navy and soldiers
and sailors, all in uniform, mlngle with the
crowd and flash their gold lace in the
bright light that floods the street. Every
where, too, are the elaborate caparisoned
mulatto gendarmes, the police of the city.
From the rufna rhnpfurfa rnfna fLa g.r.raI
OF music and the blinking Of glasses. At
little tables in the cafes the Brazilinns sit.
drinking strong coffee or other beverages.
talking, gesticulating, and neyor for a mo-
nlent completely still. The feat Of catch
ing n weasel asleep is easy compared with
thai OF catching a Brazilian when some
portion of his body is not in motion. You
VIII see a group of them sitting in a cafe
talking and every one OF them Will have
the ball Of his right foot resting ON the
moor and his knee moving with a regular.
nervous "dandle." This is owing to the
amount Of strong black coffee Il ey drink.
A Brazilian pro erb says that coffee to be
good must be BLACK as night, as bitter as
death, and hot as sheol.n
The total abstinence cause has few il any
supporters in Brazil. Everybody drinks,
men, women and children, but | never saw
a man in the empire. The police
records show that men do get drunk here.
bnt it is very seldom that one is seen. The
laboring classes drink a vile beverage
called "casasch.R The wild cat whisky Of
the west is nothing TO ii, and swallowing a
torchlight procession lisa pleasant taskIcom-
pared to drinking it. But moderate as the
Braztlians are in the use OF liquors they
are decidedly immoderate in the use of cot
fee. 1t is coffee the first thing in the
morning and the last thing at night, coffee
at meals and coffee between meals, and all
OF 1t made according to the proverb.
IN A BARBER-sHoP-LovE OF MUSIC.
Getting shaved in a Brazilian barber-
shop is an experience. Everything goes
along as II docs in n barber-shop in the
states until the beard is removed. Then
the "tonsortal artist takes a dish of earth
enware or metal with a crescent-shaped
piece cut out of one side so rs to 1T into the
neck and making his victim sit up IN the
chair proceeds TO wash his face while the
basin Is held under the chin. The dish is
exactly hk the one which Don QuiNote
wore on his head for n helmet. If it Is in a
swell barber-shop the basin Is dispensed
with and the customer is taken by the
shoulder and marched to a marble wash
bowl where he is told to wash his face and
wipe it. That operation having been per-
formed to the satisfaction Of the barber.
the "shavee' is led pack 10 his chair and
has his hair combed.
Foreigners are generally puzzled to
know why the horse-oars in Rio are called
bonds" 1t happened in this way; When
the first horse railroad was built in Rio.
bonds were issued to pay for it. There
was a great deal of talk about these bonds
and the uneducated were at n loss to know
what the English word meant. When they
saw the first horse-car they thought they
had found a solution of the question and
all exclaimed, There is one Of those much
talk of bondsiT So all over Brazil a horse
car Is a -bond" TO this day.
Brnzilians are nothing If not musical. i
Is their boast that a new waltz is published
in Rio every week. All the celebrated
singers Of the world have coined money in
the capital Of Dom Pedro, and in the win
ter season the whole populace, high and
low, flock night after night to the opera.
Every man, woman, and child in Brazil
has some idea Of music and they look on
unmusical people as barbarians. A boot
black in Rio feels n positive pain II the
man whose boots he is operating on makes
a false note in the air he happens to be
whistling. OF poetry, too, they are very
fond and read TRANSACTIONS OF American
and European poets, besides the works of
the native ones.-Rio Janeiro Cor. New
York Tribune,