for the purpose of defeating anarchical and revolutionary principles that the Government organized the project as it was. The project did not limit itself to freeing the slave; it had a more serious aim, that of the transformation of labor; and, unless the planters are furnished with the necessary means, there could be no transformation of labor. With an annual discount of six per cent on the value of the slave, and two per cent death-rate, he estimated that in ten years slavery would be extinct.

The project, after considerable discussion and some amendments, was passed in the Chamber of Deputies, on August 13th, by a small majority, due in part to Conservative votes; and the following day the Saraiva Cabinet resigned, and the Emperor, after consulting the Presidents of the Senate and Chamber, decided, on August 19th, to call on the Conservatives to form a Government. Their leader, Senator Baron de Cotegipe, promptly undertook the task, as premier, accepting for himself the portfolio of Minister of Foreign Affairs. His Cabinet supported the Saraiva project, and it passed the Senate and became a law on September 28, 1885.

On June 1, 1886, ex-Premier Dantas treated the Senate to a surprise by introducing, in behalf of himself and nine others, a bill for the unconditional abolition of slavery at the expiration of five years from its adoption. It was referred to a special committee, which was elected by the Senate on the following day, and composed of strongly pro-slavery men, among whom were Nunes Gonçalves and Martinho Campos. In five days the committee made an adverse report, declining to consider emancipation as an abstract question, but rejecting the project for its lack of opportuneness and its effects on high social interests. In their view the Saraiva-Cotegipe law was satisfying the

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aspirations of the country. According to the official report for 1886, the whole number of slaves liberated by the emancipation fund since 1871 was 24,165, at an average price of $288 for each slave-being less than 2,000 liberations per year. According to official returns, the number of slaves in the empire on June 30, 1885, was 1,133,228; and it is likely that Americans will drink coffee produced by slave-labor for at least a quarter of a century longer.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS.

The

THE fact that the Pope sided with Spain against the crown of Portugal over two centuries ago, probably has made the Catholics of the latter country and of Brazil more national and less Romish, in church matters, than have been the Catholics of some other countries. Jesuits, who had been especially active and useful in civilizing the Indians in Brazil, were expelled from the country a century and a quarter ago for having influenced the Indians to revolt against the Government.

In its proceedings against the monasteries Brazil has been slower than either Italy, Portugal, or Spain. It is only lately that it began to put in force a law for gradually winding up the monastic institutions. No new members can be received into these orders, but existing members remain unmolested. A commission under the Government was appointed to ascertain and appraise the revenue-yielding property of the different monasteries, which is understood to be large; this property was to be sold and its proceeds invested in interest-bearing securities, and out of it the surviving members of the orders were to be supported during life, after which the funds would revert to the national treasury. This action by the

legislative and executive power of the state has been hotly denounced by the Catholic clergy and some of their political friends as confiscation and robbery. Sermons have been preached, and voluminous articles published in the newspapers, denunciatory alike of the Emperor and Government for permitting the law to be carried into execution. The result has been that the law seems to be rather at a standstill.

The Franciscan Convent on São Antonio Hill is an antique massive pile, which from its long stretch of steps reminds one of the old Roman Capitol. The visit which I made to it was on one of the festival-days of the order. I was ushered into the reception-room of the provincial, or chief of the convent, where, besides three or four gentlemen, who appeared to be making a social visit, were two rather distinguished-looking men dressed in long black robes tied about them with a white cord, and whom I naturally took to be the higher officials of the order. The one of these, who took the leading part in the conversation, and who impressed me at once by his dignified manner, his deep fine voice, and fluent speech as an ideal abbot, such as Sir Walter Scott describes, I supposed was the head of the convent. I felt a gratified astonishment in meeting such a character; but I was destined to disappointment, for I learned later on that he was a Rio lawyer and politician. It was Dr. Antonio F. Vianna, a leading member of the Chamber of Deputies from Rio de Janeiro, distinguished as a debater, and who, as syndic or solicitor of the convent, was present on this occasion in the capacity of a lay member, wearing the regalia of the order. The conversation gradually led to the character of Brazilian monasteries, a subject on which I wished information from the monks themselves. Dr. Vianna launched out

into an eloquent historical review of the operations of the brotherhoods in Brazil, beginning over two centuries back, and touching their work in civilizing the Indians, in promoting education, in caring for the needy, and withal touching on the manner in which they had been oppressed. He dwelt with emphasis on the fact that there had never been religious persecution in Brazil. From him and Provincial Costa I learned that this convent had become rich; that some property was originally granted to it by the Government; that about fifty thousand dollars in money had been annually expended by it in recent times for the poor; that there are many thousand lay members of the order, and that a large hospital for their benefit is maintained by the convent; that there are now only three monks belonging to this convent, and only about twenty monks in all the twelve convents of the Franciscan order in Brazil. When the convent was in full operation the ordinary duties of the brothers, who were all educated men, were to administer the sacrament to the dying, solicit alms, and visit the sick and poor. "When the convents took charge of the poor," said Dr. Vianna, "we had no beggars among us." "Where did the brothers take their exercise and recreation?" "Out here on the mountain "-pointing to the adjacent São Antonio Hill.

They took me to see the churches, of which there are two, having much ornamentation; also the vestries, library, and other places of interest about the convent. The library is in a separate and higher building than the others. There were a couple of thousand or more ponderous volumes in calf-gilt binding, the most of them being works of the church fathers in both Latin and Greek, in opposite columns on the same page; and, though a hundred years old, the pages of several that I opened looked as