The healthfulness of the cities will be improved in time, but the climate of the country cannot be altered.

And so, as the greatest possible efficiency in a tropical country can never rival the greatest possible efficiency in a temperate country, I will venture to say that the Republic of Brazil can never excel the Republic of the Stars and Stripes.

—from “The Bay of Rio,” Our American Neighbors, by Fanny E. Coe, 1899

The City and Its Institutions
by A.J. Lamoureux

The city of Rio de janeiro is located in a neutral district, called the municipio neutro, which is analogous to the District of Columbia, in which the capital of the United States is situated. The separation of this district from the province of Rio de Janeiro took place in 1835, previous to which the city was the capital of the province as well as of the empire. The municipal district extends from the bay west to the Rio Guandti, and north from the Atlantic to Rio Mirity, comprising an area of about 538 square miles. It is divided into thirteen urban and eight suburban parishes. The city proper covers an area of eight to nine square miles. The municipality is governed partially by the imperial government and partially by a board of twenty-one aldermen. The city has no mayor, nor other executive officer, and the legislative acts of its board of aldermen are dependent upon the minister of empire (to whose department it belongs) for approval. The administrative system followed is exceedingly complicated and cumbersome, to which is due much of the inefficiency which characterizes the government of the city. The aldermen are elected for four years, and are subject to removal by the imperial government. Principally aldermanic committees, superintend the administration of municipal affairs the president of the board, who is elected at the opening of each year, having no special executive authority. The division of authority between the board of is very complicated and not easily explained. The fire and police departments, public lighting, street cleaning, tramway, public gardens, water works, sewerage and drainage works and sanitary matters, are all under the control of the general government, while street paving, opening of streets for gas-pipe repairs and other purposes, markets, license for tramway lines, are under the control of the municipal council.

The public slaughterhouse at Santa Cruz, nearly 35 miles-distant from the city by railway, is municipal property and is under the immediate control of the aldermen. The city has also a reversionary interest in the tramway lines and expects to assume control of them in due time. The neutral district elects three deputies to the General Assembly, but is still considered a part of the province in its parliamentary representation. The number of qualified voters is 7,046. The City Hall is situated on the Praca d’Acclamacao, between Rua do General Camara and Rua de S. Pedro, and is considered to be one of the noteworthy public edifices, though badly constructed. It was completed and occupied in 1882.