The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1889-12-13
SENIOR JOSE DO PATRocINIo.
cOuntrynlen.

Jose do Patrocinio, editor and proprietor
of the Gazeta da Tarde, is the son of a slave
mother by the parish priest of a small vii
lage near Rio. At least that is the account
he has published Of himself in explanation
of his vehement championship of the col
Ored race and his unmeasured abuse of
everything and everybody connected di-
rectly or indirectly with the empire,
the parliament, the church and So
ciety. A writer of extraordinary flu
ency and an orator of telling force
he rallied about him an immense fol-
lowing of the lower strata of Brazilians and
posed as the Tribune Of the People. have
excellent reasons for doubling tie disinter-
estedness of this hammer and tongs patriot,
but no one can deny that he was bold, mag
netic and terribly noisy. If his leaven did
lie lowest in the lump its work was none
his paper received from the masses both in
the capital and the provinces must have
satisfied the emperor long ago that it was
useless to dream of "plebiscite." Pat
rocinio is a dark mulatto, short and
rather burly of frame, possessed of high
spirits and monumental self-assurance.
He has told me more than once that the
United States was "behind the times"
politically, and that the poor and ignorant
with us were practically the slaves of the
rich and educated, and have little doubt
that the cause of his arrest, reported by
cable as one of the first acts of the repub-
lican government, was that he insisted on
carrying on the revolution to lengths which
Bocayuva and his associates saw would be
suicidal. Patrocinio is likely to be per-
manent thorn in the side of the new re-
public, but he deserves. full recognition as
one Of the forces contributing to the down.
fall of Dom Pedro.
Agostini, is of Italian birth, but Bohe.
milan of the Bohemians in everything that
relates to social relations. An artist of no
mean order in the higher branches of paint
ing and design, he has dedicated himself
for many years to editing and illustrating
the Weekly Revista Ilustrada, and has un-
ceasingly made war upon the weaknesses oil
the imperial government, the foibles OF the
emperor himself, and the horrors ofslavery.
The best of his cartoons are as remarkable
for their telling effectiveness as for their
admirable draughtsmanship, and they have
consistently done the work in Rio that
Punch has internationally done in London
in times Of great public excitement.
These are the men who carried forward
and perfected the ediice of the republic
which was laid so long ago by that Nestor
OF the republican press, Joaquin Saldanha
Marinha, the GanganelG of the anti-clerical
demonstrations OF other days. These men
bore the brunt, sustained the conflict when
Republican" was term of ridicule among
all educated Brazilians, and displayed in
season and out of season the courage OF
their convictions.
There is but one soldier, and not even
single statesman in the new government.
Brought about by the direct influence of the
press, governed by provisional govern.
ment. drawing its majority from the press,
and dependent for the time being wholly
upon the support and adherence OF the
press it is a perversion of history to call
the establishment of the Brazilian republic
military revolution.
The press did it, and to it belongs the
credit; not to the bayonet.