The provincial assembly meets once a year, in the month of May. The length of its sessions is determined by itself. It elects its own presiding officer. It is a very inefficient representative system. The people in the districts elect electors, who choose delegates and suplentes, or proxies. Most of these proxies belong to the city; they have little knowledge of the wants, and no sympathy with the feelings, of the people they represent. Each delegate (at least this is the case, in the province of Amazonas) is allowed one dollar and sixty-six cents per diem; and the salary of the President of that province is one thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty six cents; it is probable that the salary of the President of Pará is greater.
The police of the province is under the direction of a chefe de policia, with delegados for each comarca, and sub-delegados for the termos and municipios. These officers issue and visée passports, and the traveller should always call upon them first.
The judiciary consists of Juizes de direito; three for the comarca of the capital, and one for each of the other comarcas of the province, besides Juizes municipaès, and de orfaôs. The Juiz de direito holds a singular office, and exercises extraordinary powers; besides being the judge, he presides over the jury, and has a vote in it. An appeal lies from his court, both by himself and the defendant, to a higher court, called the Court of Relacâo, which sits in Maranham and has jurisdiction over the two provinces of Maranham and Pará. There are three or four such courts in the empire, and an appeal lies from them to the Supreme Court at Rio Janeiro.
Persons complain bitterly of the delay and vexations in the administration of justice. I have heard of cases of criminals confined in jail for years, both in Peru and Brazil, waiting for trial. It is said also, though I know nothing of this, that the judges are very open to bribery. I think, however, that this is likely to be the case, from the entire inadequacy of the salaries generally paid by the government.
I believe that the Brazilian code is mild and humane, and I am sure that it is humanely administered. The Brazilians have what I conceive to be a very proper horror of taking life judicially. They do not shrink in battle; and sudden anger and jealousy will readily induce them to kill; but I imagine the instances of capital punishment are very rare in Brazil.
The police of the city is excellent, but, except to take up a drunken foreign sailor occasionally, it has nothing to do. Crime—such as violence, wrong, stealing, drunkenness, &c.—is very rare in Pará. Probably the people are too lazy to be bad.
The province covers an area of about 360,000 square miles, and has a population of 129,828 free persons, with 33,552 slaves.
Much as it needs population, it has suffered, from time to time, considerable drainage. It is calculated that from ten to twelve thousand persons were killed by the insurrection of the Cabanos, in 1835. Since that time ten thousand have been drawn from it as soldiers for the southern wars; and the yellow-fever and small-pox, in one year, carried off between four and five thousand more.
The war of the Cabanos was a servile insurrection, instigated and headed by a few turbulent and ambitious men. The ostensible cause was dissatisfaction with the provincial government. The real cause seems to have been hatred of the Portuguese.
Charles Jenks Smith, then consul at Pará, writes to the Hon. John Forsyth, under date of January 20, 1835: