Madeiran Naval Club

Its statutes are dated 20 July 1917, and notice that it had been constituted was given to the competent authority on 17 May 1918.

The Clube Funchalense, to which we referred above, lasted almost 60 years. It was established in a house at Carmo (‘Carmel’), from where it moved to the mansion in Rua dos Ferreiros (‘blacksmiths’), which it occupied until it was dissolved. Only people of a certain social standing belonged to it, whereas the Clube Unido, founded at almost the same time and dissolved early in 1879, was less demanding in the requirements it set for its members, who in any case had to be of good conduct and hold a respectable position in society. The great merchants were admitted to the Clube Funchalense, but shopkeepers and other traders with retail establishments could not join as members. When a certain British merchant, highly esteemed and respected in Funchal but the owner of a drapery shop, sought to join the club, some members who were his friends warned him that the vote of the general assembly would go against him unless he first sold or transferred the shop!

The Clube Funchalense became well known for its balls and soirées, which were almost always attended by large numbers of ladies, both Portuguese and foreign. Almost every distinguished figure who visited this island was honoured with festivities in that house, and many of these left a lasting memory, for the luxury and splendour with which they were staged and for the gallant and noble manner in which these guests were received there.

• See Freemasonry (Maçonaria). Cochineal (Cocus cacti). A homopterous insect of the family Coccidae, imported from the Canary Islands in the second quarter of the 19th century, the female of which yielded the scarlet used in dyeing. It was bred on the cactus called prickly pear (tabaibeira) (Opunti tuna), but the industry never managed to flourish, despite the persistent efforts of some Funchal merchants. Its failure was due in part to the opposition of the peasants, who preferred the prickly pear (tabaibo) to the insect that spoiled this much-prized fruit for them, even though it was a colouring matter of high value at that time.

The term cochonilha has a very narrow meaning in Madeira, as indeed elsewhere, serving only to designate the dye insect of the prickly pear, whereas the cochonilhas, cochenilhas or cochinilhas of the naturalists are all the Coccidae, a family that includes, besides the insect mentioned, many others called lapas and alforras.

Cochineal still appears on the leaves of prickly pears at São Gonçalo and at Praia Formosa (‘beautiful beach’), and it is easily recognised by the patches it forms on the plant. If the tip of a walking stick is passed over these patches, it comes away more or less stained with scarlet.

It was Miguel de Carvalho e Almeida who introduced cochineal to Madeira, and the pharmacist Gerardo José de Nóbrega published a short work on this insect entitled The Cultivation of Cochineal (Pharmaceutic Journal, 1849).