190 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



This is but a brief account of a very serious business ; 

 but this matter and a public assassination which was per- 

 mitted by the Government will show you the rotten state 

 of things here. 



The public assassination took place last January, and 

 the facts of it are as follows : The editor of one of the 

 papers here had published certain remarks against some 

 officers in the army, and, hearing that they proposed his 

 assassination, he went to the chief of police and claimed his 

 protection. This gentleman harboured him for some hours, 

 and then said that as the coast was clear he could return 

 home. This he was very loth to do ; but the Chief of Police 

 brought round a carriage, put him in, and sent him off. 

 He had only driven a few yards when the carriage was 

 surrounded and stopped, the unfortunate editor was stabbed 

 to the heart, and dragged out of the carriage by a band of 

 men in plain clothes (officers of the ), who then dis- 

 charged their revolvers into his corpse, threw the body into 

 the doorway of the Police Station, and walked quietly off. 

 The affair was well known to have been preconcerted, all 

 the police having been sent off to distant parts of the city 

 to allow the murder to be accomplished. There was a 

 great disturbance in the town, and crowds went to the 

 house where the Ministers were then sitting in council. 

 They escaped by back doors, and some are reported to 

 have gone on board various ships in the bay. All the 

 officers of that regiment, who were concerned in the deed, 

 were despatched shortly to various remote places. These 

 officers owe one firm alone some ;8ooo, and there is no 

 chance of their ever receiving the money.* 



* The Rio News, January 24, 1884, commenting on this assassination, says, 

 " The punishment of a criminal who has any influence whatever is becoming 

 one of the forgotten things. " 



