Urban Life in Brazil, 1914
From “Arts, Science, and Hobbies” in Brazil and the Brazilians by George James Bruce, 1914.
From: 1914 C.E. To: 1914 C.E.
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From “What You See in the Cities” in Brazil and the Brazilians by George James Bruce, 1914.
The successful Brazilian loves a good home, and the cities have many mansions of handsome design and roomy proportions, standing in well-kept gardens or grounds. The best of these are to be found in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, although nearly every city has one or more striking residences.
Social clubs abound, and one many find in Rio de Janeiro clubs so expensively furnished that a stranger is puzzled to account for it. The secret of it often is that the clubs make large incomes from taking a percentage of the monies changing hands at the gambling tables in them.
Although roulette, baccarat, and such forms of gambling are contrary to law, saloons, open to the public, where such gambling goes on are to be found in nearly all the cities. They are often in close proximity to theatres and music-halls, on whose patrons they largely depend. Closely allied to the gambling saloons and lower-class music halls is the white slave traffic. This reprehensible business is allowed to flourish almost unchecked throughout Brazil. Entire streets are in many cities given up wholly to dens of infamy. Recruits for these are imported principally from France and Roumania, with a few from other nations, Britain and the U.S.A. also providing some victims.
They are brought in usually as music-hall artistes and given a few appearances on the stage by way of advertisement. Many of the casinos and music-halls are conducted principally for this introducing business, and their programmes rarely present any artistic merit. The matter is one that serious politicians are likely to deal strongly with in the near future.
The homes of the poor in the humbler quarters of the cities are not as a rule as squalid as some I have visited in London and New York. The coloured people form the bulk of the poor, and they contrive to be happy on very little. They do not drink much intoxicants, and spend any spare cash they have on lottery tickets or celebrations of some kind. They all have musical instruments, and seem to love to pass leisure time singing and chattering, if they have no money to go to the cinemas. Their food has little variety. It is always coarse and cheap, but very sustaining.
The poor Brazilian is wise enough not to pine after dainties and waste his small pay on them rather than have plenty of the plainer food he can afford. The furniture of a labourer's home is extremely simple. It is usually a few hammocks, pots, dishes, a table and chairs, a trunk to keep his best clothes and treasures in, and a few religious pictures and images around the walls. In some of the cottar homes, notably in Ceara, the women are continually making lace, and the men articles of wood and horn, for sale. The cottage industries have a wide range throughout the country.
I have seen workers in their humble homes making lace, hammocks, curtains, mats, bed-spreads, hats, slippers, ornaments, pottery, tin-ware, household utensils, furniture, musical instruments, medicines, wines, jams, confectionery, clothing, and a variety of other articles of merchandise. In Sao Paulo many works of art come from the poorest Italian homes.
The cities have their idlers too. Most of these seem to be the sons of rich men, whose sole occupation seems to be running around in motor-cars with their lady friends, or sitting about the side-walk cafes watching the passers-by. This useless class, called " conquistadores," has never been firmly enough dealt with by the authorities. These idlers often inconvenience business men, and become objectionable to ladies having to use the side-walks; yet, because of their social position, their vagaries go unchecked. As a rule the people met on the side-walks are extremely polite, far more so than in our European cities.
Courtesy, as in Japan, is a national characteristic, and you would never find a Brazilian brushing through a group of people talking, even if they impede his way on the side-walk.
The window-displays made by leading retail establishments are not far behind what is seen in London or Paris. The arrangements for serving buyers inside are yet in the crude stage. It is always difficult to get British goods, unless one visits British retail shops, of which there are a few. Clubs where British and American people meet are found in nearly all the principal cities.
There one can see the leading newspapers in the English language, and a few of the magazines. English periodicals and newspapers are on sale in many of the bookstalls. There are comparatively few street hawkers, and those licensed are not permitted to stand long in one place. They usually carry heavy loads of food and confine their attentions to the workers' quarters.
In Carnival time they have more liberty. The lottery-ticket seller roams around everywhere and may enter hotel dining and sitting-rooms. Turks, Armenians, Greeks, and Italians constitute 90 per cent, of the street traders. One seldom sees a Brazileiro peddling, unless he be a poor coloured man.
The street and traffic police are not, excepting in Sao Paulo, a smart-looking lot. They do not seem to be chosen for their height and physique, though in Sao Paulo the standard is much above what I noticed in any other city of Brazil. There are two classes of police, an armed military and a civil force, on the streets. The military police is the smarter. Traffic is well regulated by these men, and I have noticed they exercise a good deal of tact in the discharge of their duties.
Bruce, George James. Brazil and the Brazilians. Dodd, Mead and Company, 1914.
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