number with a dog.  Say the dog number was thirty-seven.  This man would try to find a ticket whose number ends in thirty-seven.  Such a ticket would be considered lucky.  The ticket sellers often call out as they pass along the street the last two numbers on the tickets they have to sell, and if a man hears the number called which corresponds to the animal he dreamed about last night, he will consider it lucky and buy.  There are also many shops where only lottery tickets are sold.  No evil has more tenaciously and universally fastened upon the people than has the evil of gambling in lotteries.  There are 310 Federal lotteries, besides many others run by the various States.  These 310 lotteries receive in premiums the enormous sum of $19,399,200 every month—­about one dollar for every individual in Brazil.  A portion of the profits amassed by the lottery companies is devoted to charity, a portion to Roman Catholic churches and a portion goes to the government.  Even after these amounts are taken out, there is ample left for the enrichment of the companies’ coffers to the impoverishment of many very needy working people.

It is difficult to write temperately of Rio de Janeiro.  There is such a rare combination here of the primitive and the progressive, of the oriental and occidental, that one is inclined to go off into exclamation points.  On the Avenida Central one sees numbers of street venders carrying all kinds of wares on their heads and pulling all sorts of carts, making their way in and out among the automobiles, and handsome victorias pulled by mules.  We note also all types of people.  The Latin features predominate, but the negro is in evidence, the Indian features are often recognized, and mingled with these are seen faces representing all nations.  One is impressed with the dress of the people.  Who is that handsomely-groomed, gentleman passing?  From his fine clothes you think he must be a man of wealth and influence.  Who is he?  He is a barber.  That one over there is a clerk.  But why these fine clothes?  Ah! thereby hangs the tale.  Appearance is worshiped.  Parade runs through everything, even in the prevailing religion, which, alas, is little more than form—­parade.  Don’t get the idea that everybody is finely dressed and that every handsomely-dressed man is a barber.  Many are able to afford such clothes and are cultured gentlemen.  One notices most the dress of the lower classes, the most striking article of which is the wooden-bottom sandals into which they thrust their toes and go flapping along in imminent peril of losing the slippers every moment.  The remainder of the clothing worn by these beslippered people consists often of only two thin garments.  Certainly this is a place of great contrasts.  But somehow these contrasts do not impress one as being incongruous.  They are in perfect keeping with their surroundings.  Rio is really a cosmopolitan city and is a pleasant blending of the old and the new.