PREFACE. 
vu 
If the following pages, in which I have endeavonred to observe 
the true medium between optimist and pessimist views of things, should 
help to convince some Brazilian in authority who may chance to peruse 
tliem, of the continued existence of pernicions abuses and eiTors, and 
should show him that, in spite of undeniable recent progress, the career 
of improvement has not been exhausted ; and if they should succeed in 
uiflaming the Old World with interest in the welfare of these secluded 
comers of the Ifew, some at least of my heartiest aspirations •nail have 
been realised. These countries do indeed demand attention, if it be only 
on the ground that they offer the fair prospect of some day becoming 
outlets for those fermenting elements Avhich, with increased seriousness, 
have lately menaced social order in over-peopled Eiu-ope. 
By the emancipation of slave-born children, from the first day of 
January 1872, it is true that the abolition of Slavery, which is the 
chief bar to real progress, has become simply a qtiestion of time : 
\ but we have to aAvait the political equalisation of the immigrimts with 
the nath^es, and the concession of the right of civil marriage,* before 
I we can, with clear consciences, advise our farmers of the better class 
I to settle there. Poor labourers and small tradesfolk, however, so 
; numerous with us, will profit by the change to high wages, even 
' under existing conditions. 
Only an immigration of German race, that really settles in the 
1 new home and honestly shares the burdens of the State, can tnily 
' help the thinly-peopled country ; and Brazil, which sees thousands of 
Portuguese landing yearly and going back as soon as they have 
scraped together a few hundred milreis, is specially qualified to judge 
of this radical difference between Latin and Gorman nations. Energetic 
representatives, such as Ave at last seem to have beyond the Atlantic, 
I particularly at Eio, will meauAvhile avail sufficiently to protect German 
I residents in Brazil, and in due time effect the removal of all the 
I inconveniences incident to their settlement there. 
I 
[ * In June, 1873, tlie Brazilian Govemmont had come to an open rupture uitli the 
Bishop of Pernambuco, or rather with Pome itself, on account of the Encyclical 
against the Freemasons, who number several of the highest Brazilian officials in their 
t fraternity. Li the interests of peace and decency in the Protestant colonies, however, 
the Government was forced not only to declui'e the vahdity of unions effected after 
the Protestant rite, against the decision of the Bishop, but also to prosecute at law 
two colonists’ wives who had become Catholics in order to marry a second time, 
together with the Catholic priests who had i^erformed the second ceromon}'. 
