84 POLITICAL STATE OF BRAZIL. 



to recover a debt by law except through bribery. If a debtor has 

 money or patronage, and refuses to pay, it is difficult to obtain the 

 payment even of an acknowledged note of hand through the process 

 of the law, and it generally takes years to accomplish. 



It is, however, greatly to the praise of the Brazilians, that it is not 

 often necessary to have recourse to law for this purpose. The 

 greatest injustice occurs in the Orphans' Court; but the Court of 

 Findings and Losings is one of the most singular in this respect. It 

 takes charge of all things lost and found, making it the duty of a 

 person finding any thing to deposit it with the judge. The loser, to 

 prove property, must have three witnesses to swear that they saw him 

 lose it, and three others, that they saw the finder pick it up, otherwise 

 it remains in deposit. To show the working of this system, a gentle- 

 man of Rio found a bank-note of four hundred milrees (about $250). 

 The owner went to him and claimed it, proving satisfactorily to the 

 finder that the identical bank-note was his, upon which the finder gave 

 it up. The Judge of Findings and Losings heard of the circumstance, 

 sent for him, and asked a statement of the case, which the finder 

 unsuspectingly related. The judge praised his honourable conduct, 

 and was punctiliously polite. The next day, however, he issued an 

 order for the deposit of the money found ; and because it was disre- 

 garded, the finder, a respectable foreign merchant, was arrested in the 

 street and sent to prison, to be confined with common criminals. The 

 jailer, however, having private apartments for those who could pay 

 for them, he became his guest, and was preserved from the disgust of 

 being a close prisoner, and the companion of degraded and depraved 

 wretches. Before he could regain his liberty, he had to pay the 

 amount found, the decision being the forfeiture of a like sum, together 

 with the jailer's fees, &c. 



The justices of the peace for each district are elected by the people, 

 four at a time, to serve as many years by turns, substituting one for 

 the other, when sickness or other circumstances prevent either from 

 serving. They have final judgments in amounts not exceeding sixteen 

 milrees. In cases of civil process, they act as mediators to effect a 

 compromise and reconcile difficulties. Their political attributes are to 

 preserve the peace in case of riot or disorder among the people, and 

 they have a right to call on the national guard or military police to 

 aid them, who must act under their direction. There is no civil 

 police, and no imprisonment for debt. Trial by jury was at first 

 limited to political offences and violations of the liberty of the press, 

 but it is now extended to criminal cases, and in some instances to 

 civil suits. Sixty persons compose the jury, and forty are necessary 



