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By Root 1988 0

number and better armed, and that despite this fact, and despite the discovery in the hamlet of Ipupiará of a shipment of English rifles being delivered to Canudos and the corpse of the English agent Galileo Gall, the State authorities, beginning with His Excellency Governor Dom Luiz Viana, have demonstrated a suspect apathy and passivity by not having immediately called for the intervention of the Federal Army, as the patriots of Bahia are demanding, in order to put down this conspiracy that is threatening the very existence of the Brazilian nation.

The Vice-President of the Progressivist Republican Party, the Honorable Deputy Dom Eliseu de Roque, read a telegram sent to the hero of the Republican Army, the officer responsible for crushing the monarchist uprising in Santa Catarina and the eminent collaborator of Marshal Floriano Peixoto, Colonel Moreira César, the text of which consisted of the following terse message: “Come and save the Republic.” Despite the protests of the deputies of the majority, the Honorable Deputy read the names of the 325 heads of households and Salvador voters who had signed the telegram.

The Vice-President of the Autonomist Party and President of the Legislative Assembly, His Excellency Sir Adalberto de Gumúcio, declared that it was base calumny even to intimate that a man such as the Baron de Canabrava, a leading figure in Bahia, thanks to whom this State has roads, railways, bridges, charity hospitals, schools, and a multitude of public works, might be open to the accusation—leveled against him, moreover, in absentia—of conspiring against Brazilian sovereignty.

The Honorable Deputy Dom Floriano Mártir declared that the President of the Assembly preferred to bathe his kinsman and the head of his Party, the Baron de Canabrava, in incense rather than speak of the blood of soldiers shed in Uauá and on Monte Cambaio by degenerate Sebastianists or of the English arms seized in the interior or of the English agent Gall, whose corpse was discovered by the Rural Guard in Ipupiará. And the question was asked: “Is this sleight of hand perhaps due to the fact that these subjects make the Honorable President of the Assembly uncomfortable?” The Autonomist Party Deputy, the Honorable Dom Eduardo Glicério, declared that in their eagerness for power the Republicans invent Grand Guignol conspiracies, complete with albino-haired spies burned to cinders, that make them the laughingstock of sensible Bahians. And he posed the question: “Isn’t the Baron de Canabrava the prime victim of the rebellion of those merciless fanatics? Are they not occupying land on his estate?” He was thereupon interrupted by the Honorable Deputy Dom Dantas Horcadas, who declared: “And what if that land has not been usurped but willingly handed over to them?” The Honorable Deputy Dom Eduardo Glicério answered by asking the Honorable Deputy Dom Dantas Horcadas whether they hadn’t taught him at the Salesian Fathers’ school not to interrupt a gentleman while he is speaking. The Honorable Deputy Dom Dantas Horcadas replied immediately that he had no idea that a gentleman was speaking. The Honorable Deputy Dom Eduardo Glicério exclaimed that this insult would receive its answer on the field of honor unless apologies were forthcoming ipso facto. The President of the Assembly, His Excellency Sir Adalberto de Gumúcio, exhorted the Honorable Deputy Dom Dantas Horcadas to present his apologies to his colleague, for the sake of the harmony and dignity of the institution. The Honorable Deputy Dom Dantas Horcadas declared that he had merely meant to say that to his knowledge, strictly speaking, there no longer existed in Brazil either gentlemen in the sense of chevalier, or barons, or viscounts, because, beginning with the glorious Republican government of Marshal Floriano Peixoto, Worthy Patriot of his country, whose memory will live forever in the hearts of Brazilians, all titles of nobility have become useless pieces of paper. But, he stated, it was not his intention to offend anyone, least of all the Honorable Deputy Dom Eduardo Glicério. The