Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1882 — The Emperor of Brazil. [ARTICLE]

The Emperor of Brazil.

The Emperor’s equipage and retinue are not very imposing. He is a plain man and does not care for splendor. Moreover, the country is as yet undeveloped and the government poor; consequently, it cannot afford much show. His majesty rides in an ordinary black coach, which, in point of style, would scarcely compare favorably with a street hack in an American city. The vehicle is drawn by six mules, and is followed by twelve cavalry soldiers, mostly negroes, and some of them smoking cigars. The cavalrymen are as poor specimens of soldiers as the coach is of vehicles. The coachman wears some poor silver lace on his hat and coat-cuffs, and the footmen are equally poorly attired. Amidst these signs of poverty and mock-splendor, which attest either the weakness of his government or the parsimony of his parliament, one is irresistibly compelled to respect the mildness, wisdom and benignity of the Emperor. He wears the plainest of black clothes, bow s in return to all who bow to him, and even lifts his stove-pipe hat off when some gentleman approaches him with the like mark of politeness. He looks much older than when he visited our country six years ago. I fancy he has a dejected look, as though, after trying in vain to bring his people to a sense of their backwardness, as compared with the more progressive nations which he had visited fti North America and Europe, he had given up all hope of success. But this country was originally colonized in a peculiar way. It was a mistake of Portugal to believe that Brazil would be settled all the more rapidly if it was parceled out into great estates ffazendas); and consequently all political powder fell,centuries ago, into the hands of the fazendeiros; and there it remains still. Holding this power they refuse to permit the imposition of land taxes and cause the revenues to be extorted from the various incidents of commercial activity, which are thus stifled in their birth. By the stifling of these incidents all progress is retarded.— San Francisco 'Chronicle.