Portugal -- History -- Joseph, 1750-1777 -- Fiction
But few years ago, we remember returning at early dawn from a party,
when we encountered several persons, and two guards, standing round a
man on the ground weltering in blood yet flowing warm from a deep wound
in his side. A convulsive shudder passed through his frame, yet no one
attempted to aid him, the guards keeping every one off with their
bayonets, saying it was their duty to allow none to touch him till the
officers of justice had arrived to inquire into the case. The man was
then past recovery; but had aid been afforded him when first discovered,
he might probably have been saved; yet, surrounded by his fellow
creatures, he was allowed to bleed to death without a saving hand held
forth. If we recollect rightly, he had been an officer in the Miguelite
army, and had committed several atrocious acts; but had he been a
friend, the same would have occurred. But to return to earlier times.
It was then also the practice of the dissolute and idle young fidalgos
to range the city with bacchanalian songs, injuring and insulting all
they met; often on the slightest resistance, spilling blood, and
committing, indeed, every sort of excess, besides amusing themselves, in
their milder moods, with those practical jokes at one time fashionable
in England, and probably imitated from them. In his youth, it was said
that Sebastiao Carvalho had been a leader in one of the most daring of
these bands, when, to make his gigantic height more conspicuous, he
dressed himself with a white hat and shoes, driving all rival parties
before him. Being thus perfectly acquainted with all the mysteries of
the system, he had determined, now that he had succeeded to power, to
put down all disorders of the sort. Such was the state of Lisbon in
1755, and, as far as cleanliness was concerned, it was not much improved
in 1830; but since then, under the beneficial influence of a liberal and
more enlightened government, vast improvements have taken place; drains
have been formed; it is paved and well lighted, and as well patrolled as
any city in Europe, though not more so than the second city of the
kingdom, Oporto, through any part of which a person may walk at night
without the slightest fear of robbery, owing to a highly efficient
municipal guard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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