RIO DE JANEIRO AND ITS ENVIRONS. 65 
allowed on the service of the road, Portuguese and German 
workmen being chiefly employed. This is a regulation 
which applies not only here, but on other public works 
about Rio. The contracts granted by the government 
expressly exclude the employment of slaves, though un- 
fortunately this rule is not adhered to strictly, because 
for the performance of certain kinds of work no substitute 
for slave labor has yet been found. In the direct care 
of the road, however, in the repairs, for instance, re- 
quiring gangs of men who are constantly at work blasting 
rock and cracking the fragments into small pieces for the 
fresh macadamizing of any imperfect spot, mending any 
defects in the embankments or walls, <fcc., none but free 
labor is employed. 
This attempt to exclude slaves from the public works 
is an emancipation movement, undertaken with the idea 
of gradually limiting slave labor to agricultural processes, 
and ridding the large cities and their neighborhood of 
the presence of slavery. The subject of emancipation is 
no such political bugbear here as it has been with us. It 
is very liberally and calmly discussed by all classes ; the 
general feeling is against the institution, and it seems to 
be taken for granted that it will disappear before many 
years are over. During this very session of the Assem- 
bly one or two bills for emancipation have been brought 
forward. Even now any enterprising negro may obtain 
his freedom, and, once obtained, there is no obstacle to 
his rising in social or political station. But while from 
this point of view slavery is less absolute than it was 
with us, it has some appalling aspects. The slaves, at 
least in the cities, are literally beasts of burden. One 
sees the most cumbersome furniture, pianos and the like, 
5 
