618 



PARAGUAY. 



PATENTS. 



rison at Asuncion, and the rest doing frontier 

 service. In case of war, the National Guard is 

 enrolled. The country has a chief of police in 

 each of the seventy departments. The navy 

 consists of a screw steam man-of-war of 440 

 tons, mounting 4 guns, and having a crew of 

 36 sailors, commanded by 4 officers, besides 3 

 small steamers doing service in the ports. 



Finance. The chief source of revenue is the 

 customs, which in 1881 produced $426,940, and 

 adding thereto other items of income the total 

 amount collected was set at $542,000. For the 

 year 1883 the budget estimated the aggregate 

 outlay at $352,963. 



Public Indebtedness. By virtue of the treaties 

 of peace which terminated the war, and finally 

 the still pending differences between Paraguay 

 and the individual belligerents that had formed 

 the alliance against her, she obliged herself to 

 refund the cost of the war, and indemnify those 

 who suffered by the Lopez invasion of Brazil- 

 ian, Argentine, and Uruguayan territory. By a 

 separate treaty one of the parties to the former 

 alliance, Uruguay, waived these latter claims of 

 indemnity on April 20, 1883. The precise cost 

 of the war has never been estimated, but those 

 who suffered from the invasion have formu- 

 lated their claims, and Paraguay has recognized 

 their validity, constituting Brazilian and Ar- 

 gentine claims to the amount of several mill- 

 ion dollars still pending. 



The internal debt, by the sale of national 

 property, that of the railroad, and through the 

 operations of a sinking fund created by an ex- 

 tra duty of 10 per cent., has been reduced to 

 $642,667. The foreign debt amounted, on Jan. 

 1, 1882, to $16,818,412. 



General Condition of the Country. Congress re- 

 opened its sessions April 1, 1883, on which oc- 

 casion the President in his message alluded to 

 the improved state of affairs, the cessation of 

 the financial crisis, the progress made by pub- 

 lic instruction, the rapid increase of flocks of 

 sheep, and the remarkable headway which ag- 

 riculture had made. Advices dated in Decem- 

 ber, 1883, show that the year had been gen- 

 erally prosperous ; but a country the bulk of 

 whose male population perished during the 

 gigantic and prolonged struggle against a pow- 

 erful alliance of neighbors requires time to re- 

 place itself on a flourishing moral and material 

 basis, and a large immigration of agriculturists 

 to fill up the gap left by the war. 



The practical and liberal measures of the 

 present administration have already done much 

 toward obliterating the evil results of the gov- 

 ernment with which the country was afflicted 

 during the successive sway of a Francia, Rosas, 

 and Lopez. The financial difficulties hamper- 

 ing it in this endeavor are great, and foreign 

 capital is slow in coming thither. Fortunately, 

 the Government is the chief owner of the arable 

 land in the republic, and has therefore the 

 means of holding out inducements to agricul- 

 turists from abroad. Strenuous efforts have, 

 therefore, been made to foster immigration, 



especially from Germany, and not without suc- 

 cess. A dispatch from London, Jn. 11, 1884, 

 said : " The movement in Germany for the es- 

 tablishment of working-men's colonies is mak- 

 ing rapid headway. Committees of emigration 

 from different parts of the country recently 

 came together at Frankfort, and resolved to 

 push the matter of sending more German work- 

 men to Paraguay, where a colony had already 

 been established." For several years past the 

 Geographical Society of Leipsic has labored in 

 the same direction, and forwarded colonists to 

 Paraguay. Since, in 1882, some Germans and 

 Englishmen became purchasers of tracts of 

 arable lands in Paraguay, similar property has 

 risen 50 per cent, in 1883. But even at this 

 advance, estancias, well watered, wooded, and 

 provided with fine pasturages, could still be 

 bought in 1883 for $800 to $1,000 the square 

 league. There are probably few countries pos- 

 sessing the resources and climate of Paraguay, 

 of easy access to immigration, where, with such 

 a moderate outlay, similar tracts of land can be 

 acquired by the lionafide settler. 



Communications. The only railway in opera- 

 tion is the one from Asuncion to Paraguari, 

 forty-five miles, which in 1881 forwarded 81,- 

 807 passengers. In the same year its gross earn- 

 ings were $61,207. There is but one telegraph 

 line in operation, running parallel with the rail- 

 way aforenamed. The items of mail matter for- 

 warded were as follow : 



Amount of postage collected in 1881, $2,227. 

 Commerce. The commercial movements in 

 two years were as follow : 



The chief articles of import in 1881 were: 

 cotton goods, $269,264 worth ; beverages, 

 $167,114; hardware, $119,484; woolens, $77,- 

 351 ; and the remainder was made up of flour, 

 boots and shoes, sugar, rice, coal, petroleum, 

 bagging, etc. The exports consisted of yerla 

 mate, or Paraguay tea, $910,126; leaf-tobacco 

 and cigars, $682,666; hides and skins, $116,- 

 782 ; oranges, $47,948 ; the rest being cabinet 

 and dye woods, essence of orange-blossoms, 

 tanning-bark, Indian corn, leather, etc. 



PATENTS. A United States patent for &n in- 

 vention is a grant, given by the Government, 

 of the exclusive right to use, make, or sell any 

 subject of invention that has been first invented 

 by the applicant himself, not abandoned, nor in 

 public use. It is granted for a period of sev- 

 enteen years, and can not be extended. The 

 word " patent" means open. A patent struct- 



