1853- RIO- band of capoeiras

126 Brazil and the Brazilians.

Yet there are occasions when the police receive a strong hint through the public press for their remissness. The following, taken from a late Correio Mercantil, is an illustration:
—"Night before last, after eight o'clock, an individual named Mauricio was attacked by a band of capoeiras(*) who fell upon him with clubs, striking him upon the forehead, and gashing his thigh in such a manner as to injure the artery. The victim, bathed in blood, was taken to the drug-store of Sr. Pires Ferao, and there received the necessary succors, which were afforded him by Dr. Thomas Antunes de Abreu, who rushed to the aid of the poor man as soon as he was called. No police-authority appeared to take cognizance of this criminal deed!" Such outrages are exceptions,and a few articles based on facts like the above soon arouse the police to their duty. There are some offences against the good of society which the police occasionally winked at during my residence in Rio, —i.e.gambling. The jogo seems an inveterate habit of some Brazilians; and when I have been cooped up with them in quarantine I have had opportunities for watching how every class represented in the Lazareto, from the padre down, gave itself up to the gambling-passion……………….English Slave-holders. 137.
There is a singular secret society among the negroes, in which the hiffhest rank is assigned to the man who has taken the most lives. They are not so numerous as formerly, but from time to time harm the unoffending. These blacks style themselves capoeiros, and during a festa they will rush out at night and rip up any other black they chance to meet. They rarely attack the whites, knowing, perhaps, that it would cost them too dearly.

(*) Africans, -who with daggers run a muck in the streets, but not often at the present day in Rio. See page 137.

fuente: BRAZIL, THE BRAZILIANS,PORTRAYED IN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES.REV. JAMES C. FLETCHER AND REV. D. P. KIDDER, D. D. ILLUSTRATED BV ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ENGRAVINGS. EIGHTH EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. LONDON : SAMPSON, LOW, SON, & CO. 1868.