RIO DE JANEIRO AND ITS ENVIRONS. 65 



allowed on the service of the road, Portuguese and German 

 workmen being chiefly employed. This is a regulation 

 which applies not only here, but on other public works 

 about Rio. The contracts granted by the government 

 expressly exclude the employment of slaves, though un- 

 fortunately this rule is not adhered to strictly, because 

 for the performance of certain kinds of work no substitute 

 for slave labor has yet been found. In the direct care 

 of the road, however, in the repairs, for instance, re- 

 quiring gangs of men who are constantly at work blasting 

 rock and cracking the fragments into small pieces for the 

 fresh macadamizing of any imperfect spot, mending any 

 defects in the embankments or walls, &c., none but free 

 labor is employed. 



This attempt to exclude slaves from the public works 

 is an emancipation movement, undertaken with the idea 

 of gradually limiting slave labor to agricultural processes, 

 and ridding the large cities and their neighborhood of 

 the presence of slavery. The subject of emancipation is 

 no such political bugbear here as it has been with us. It 

 is very liberally and calmly discussed by all classes ; the 

 general feeling is against the institution, and it seems to 

 be taken for granted that it will disappear before many 

 years are over. During this very session of the Assem- 

 bly one or two bills for emancipation have been brought 

 forward. Even now any enterprising negro may obtain 

 his freedom, and, once obtained, there is no obstacle to 

 his rising in social or political station. But while from 

 this point of view slavery is less absolute than it was 

 with us, it has some appalling aspects. The slaves, at 

 least in the cities, are literally beasts of burden. One 

 sees the most cumbersome furniture, — pianos and the like, 



5 



