his conscience visits him-" and I who have shed blood cannot shed tears! But the four rivers would not cleanse my soul"-or does he flatter himself he is indeed a brave and admirable mortal until he reach that necessary day when the Highest of all Judges shall revise his abject mockery of a trial.

To speak in more prosaic terms, the infamous incompetence and corruption of the judicial authorities, and the infamous leniency which is extended to criminals of every class, is causing in the statistics of Spanish crime a growth as steady and unchecked as it is scandalous. The belief that to take the life of a fellow creature upon the most trivial provocation is a noble act indicative of a fine fellow, a valiente, is encouraged by every judge and jury throughout the kingdom. When will these misguided beings recognise that the lust of assassination is nothing better than the outcome of a gross and terrible ignorance? Those set the least value on life who least understand what life is worth; and the bigger the brute the bigger the bravery. That is all. But the law of Spain protects the criminal, regarding him as its blood relation and a part and parcel of itself. It is the honest man who is persecuted and intimidated. If he is robbed, and complains to the authorities, they laugh at him; or else their first act is to unearth the thieves (with whom, as likely as not, they are on terms of excellent familiarity), and propose a division of the spoil.

For the object of Spanish justice, whenever a presumably law-abiding citizen presents himself with a plea for equity, is to marear him-that is, make him. weary of his very existence, by sending him from

pillar to post and back again, and squeezing out of him, in fees and bribes, every penny it possibly can. So much so, that were I a merchant of Madrid, if my warehouse were robbed in broad daylight, if twenty persons saw the theft committed, and could positively swear to the thieves, and even if these thieves were notorious jail birds with the blackest of black records, I should be afraid to prosecute. My witnesses would be insulted and derided-for Spanish law condones assassination, but not the giving of evidence-the thieves would be let out on nominal bail, and calmly take the first train that left the capital, and Justice, in order to continue her admirable efforts on my behalf, would be very careful to relieve me of whatever pecuniary resources I had remaining.

All the above may very possibly be taken for wild and partial talk. But the Fiscal of the Supreme Court of Madrid can hardly be taxed with prejudice. This functionary, in his address delivered at the opening of the sessions on September 15th, 1899, stated that, according to various reports he had received, "death by violence was becoming more serious "—that is, more frequent; and the Fiscal of the Coruña court declared that in that part of the country the usages of former times had completely changed, and that at the present day during every fair and popular assembly pistols and revolvers are constantly made use of. "Formerly," he said, "the Galician would only use a stick, regarding firearms, knives, and such like as derogatory to his nobleness and courage: nowadays the first use he makes of his money is to buy firearms, which are

so generally employed that to check so deplorable an abuse would be to render a benefit to the nation."

Another paragraph of the Madrid Fiscal's report is equally instructive. He says "the Fiscal of Granada complains that the conduct of the jury is in every respect disgraceful. . . He mentions eight

cases of the utmost gravity, in which, arbitrarily, and in defiance of the evidence, the jury either construed a murder pure and simple into a mere case of manslaughter, or else acquitted the criminal by taking into account a groundless supposition that he had acted in self-defence, and, in one instance, that he was insane, although the medical evidence had explicitly established the contrary." And the Fiscal of Málaga reported that "the treatment of manslaughter, unfortunately so frequent an offence in Spain, and above all in Andalusia, is lamentably lenient. The slightest provocation, insult, or threat offered to the aggrieved party, or an offence of the most trivial description, no matter what length of time may have elapsed since its commission, is regarded as a sufficient ground for complete acquittal."

It stands with reason that the detestable custom whereby the Spaniard sallies forth into the street at all hours and on all occasions armed with a loaded revolver or a knife should be sternly put down. It should be made severely punishable to carry any weapon other than a stick. And the custom is peculiarly dangerous among a people whose instincts. are noble and forgiving, but whose temper is so quick that there is often not the time for their sense of reason or spirit of forgiveness to operate at all.

Quicker than thought their fiery irrational vehemence -the transport which Spanish law baptizes with the name of obcecación, and regards, with monstrous imbecility, as a highly extenuating circumstancequicker than any speech or thought this gets the mastery of the disputants, and-murder done!

A Spanish tradesman of the humbler class, and a thoroughly respectable and kindly fellow, once described to me how the merest accident rescued him from destroying a fellow-creature. "My brother,” he said, "who had been called away from our home to serve as a soldier, was bidding me good-bye on the station platform, when a guardia spoke roughly to him; and, before I knew what I was doing, my hand went to my pocket. It was my constant custom to carry a knife, but on this occasion, by the veriest act of providence, I had left it in another coat."

"If," I commented, "you had killed the guardia, you would have gone to prison for two or three years, possibly less; possibly you would not have gone to prison at all. In the estimation of the most degraded of your countrymen you would have passed for a valiente, or fine fellow; but every rightthinking person would have shunned you. The shedding of another man's blood would have befouled you and left you manchado. And I am certain that throughout your after life you would, never have ceased to lament the moment which earned for you the opprobrium of your decentest neighbours.”

Never," he assented, "and I thank God from the bottom of my heart that I had no knife with As it was, I merely knocked the guardia down."

me.

"And that," I observed, "was perfectly right and proper.'

It is a fact that the Spaniards, generally, are quick-witted and intelligent. It is also a fact that one in every three can neither read nor write. No graver accusation could possibly be brought against Spain's Government than this; but part of the blame must undoubtedly attach to the Spanish people as a whole. It is because of this dearth of elementary schooling that the Spaniards are continually at a disadvantage in their international relations; that the mass of the populace exist in ignominious servitude beneath the heel of their local caciques; that instead of training and appointing magistrates of competence and probity, they prefer to establish for themselves a personal judicial system which is primitive and noxious through and through; and that their knowledge of agriculture-of how to profit by the soil a generous providence has bestowed upon them—is hundreds of years behind the rest of Europe.

The oppression under which the Spanish people are now suffering, seems all the worse, indeed, because it is uncombated. Of course I do not advocate for a moment that the Spaniards should resort to positive violence. May heaven avert from them the repetition of their odious civil wars, or of military or civil dictatorships prompted, not by patriotism, but by criminal vanity. In scores of countries, year by year, a tranquil revolution is at work, whose only stratagems and weapons are those of peace. Such is the revolution I should be glad to witness in Spain; led by the people and by the