Brazil has an exuberant press. There is a large number of dailies and weeklies in proportion to the population, many of the smaller journals existing to serve the purposes of some special movement, colony, or party, and there are many technical periodicals of varying merit. Grace, pungency and a frequently merciless frankness are the chief characteristics of the free-lance sections of the Brazilian press, although there are certain staid and conservative journals whose dignity never deserts them. The first of all Brazilian newspapers was a little sheet started in Rio, soon after the arrival of Dom João, by Frey Tiburcio; it was practically a Court Journal. Two of its notable antagonists later on were the _Tamoyo_ and the _Sentinella_. All of these early periodicals died a natural death, the newspaper of longest continual publication in Brazil being the _Diario de Pernambuco_. The premier newspaper in Brazil, which is also perhaps the best in South America, although it has a formidable rival in the Argentine, is “o velho,” the famous _Jornal do Commercio_, the semi-official, powerful, wealthy, and most excellent daily of Rio, with a circulation all over Brazil and reaching out as well to most parts of the educated world. It is a great paper in all senses of the word, is finely printed—this great sheet, often with thirty-two and sometimes eighty big pages, eight columns wide, printed in a language requiring the “til,” “cedilla,” acute and circumflex accents, constantly employed, comes out day after day almost without any typographical errors. Its reviews of commercial affairs are made with authority; it is remarkable for having no editorials, anything that needs to be said editorially appearing in the “_Varias Noticias_;” months may pass without this column containing more than chronicles of official acts and movements, but when the _Jornal_ is moved to speak its voice comes in no uncertain tone. Its denunciations and pronouncements are discussed like a Papal Edict in the Middle Ages.