SLAVERY. 283 



" a prayer that the dead may not forget us in their prayers for 

 these unhappy ones." 



The Rio News* commenting on this letter, says, " The Bra- 

 zilian slave-owner never obeyed the law of 1831, because it 

 was antagonistic to what he considered his own private interest 

 an uninterrupted supply of cheap slave-labour. . . . For some 

 twenty-five years he brought in over half a million of Africans 

 after 1831, and it was only after further legislation and the forcible 

 intervention of foreign powers that he finally gave up the traffic. 

 Since the passage of the law of 1871 he has pursued a similar 

 policy with relation to the avoidance of its requirements. There 

 has never been an honest registration of slaves, nor a strict observ- 

 ance of the provision guaranteeing liberty to the children of slave 

 mothers. . . . No man can justly claim the protection of laws 

 which he habitually and openly violates. If a law is worth en- 

 forcing, it is worth obeying." 



The " Funda de Emancipagao," or Emancipation Fund, is 

 divided at certain intervals by the Government of each province 

 between the different municipalities. Every day one reads in the 

 papers of some slaves liberated by this fund. The administrators 

 select their candidates carefully. For instance, they prefer to free a 

 slave whose husband or wife is already free. Again, the fazendeiros 

 (landed gentry) give some of their slaves land, and allow them 

 Sundays and saints' days to cultivate it ; or if the slaves are hired 

 out, their wages on those days belong to them. Slaves can thus 

 earn money to assist in buying their freedom ; and such are also 

 preferred as recipients from the Emancipation Fund. When the 

 time for liberation arrives, the master and slaves appear before 

 the municipal judge, and their value is handed over to the 

 owner. 



I may quote, among many instances that I heard of, a gentle- 

 man at Pitanguy, who possesses a slave who is a " pedreiro " (stone- 

 mason). Out of every $2 500 reis that he receives as wages, the 

 master takes $i 300 reis, and gives the slave $i 200 reis. 

 Another man has a black cook who lived five years in Rio, being 

 three years in a French house; he obtained his freedom in 1870. 

 He speaks a little French, and, though he cannot read, he knows 

 * July 5, 1884. 



