TAXES. 



contracted for at a reasonable rate, but the con- 

 tractors again dispose of their shares in small 

 portions ; these are again retailed to other per- 

 sons, and as a profit is obtained by each transfer 

 the people must be oppressed, that these men 

 may satisfy those above them and enrich them- 

 selves. The system is in itself bad, but is ren- 

 dered still heavier by this division of the spoil. 

 The tenth of cattle, as I have already said, is 

 levied in kind upon the estates in the interior of 

 the country, and, besides this, a duty of 320 reis 

 per arroba of 32lbs. is paid upon the meat at the 

 shambles, which amounts to about twenty-five 

 per cent. Fish pays the tenth, and afterwards a 

 fifteenth. Every transfer of immovable pro- 

 perty is subject to a duty of ten per cent and 

 movables to five per cent. Besides these, there 

 are many other taxes of minor importance. 

 Rum, both for exportation and home consump- 

 tion, pays a duty of 80 reis per Canada *, which 

 is sometimes a fourth of its value, but may be 

 reckoned as from fifteen to twenty per cent. 

 Cotton pays the tenth, and is again taxed at the 



* A great confusion exists in Brazil respecting measures. 

 Every captaincy has its own, agreeing neither with those of 

 its neighbours, nor with the measures of Portugal, though 

 the same names are used invariably : thus a canada and an 

 alqueire in Pernambuco represent a much greater quantity 

 than the same denominations in Portugal, and less than in 

 some of the other provinces of Brazil. 



VOL. I. E 



