The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-10-17 00:00:00

GENERAL PRIM'S_ RECEPTION AT

MADRID.

The Special Correspondent of The Times, describing
the excitement which prevailed in Madrid, October 7,
the day General Prim arrived Plere, says :--
To describe an afternoon ceremony, with the mails closing
at two p.m., and with the streets so crowded lel to make a
walk to the post-office an Impossibility, may seem a rather
hi melees undertaking. .. . What desetiption can lne
attempted? Take all the particulars Igave a few clays ago
respecting the triumphal entrain:a of Marshal Serrano,
multiply it by two, or four, or twenty, and you can conceive
a faint M. of the reception that Olatirld is preparing for
Print. It is clew past one, and the heneral was expected to
come in between one and two. Se may, bows sox, be several
hours in coming, and the multitude are still crowding down
tin the Atocha station, where they expect to catch the that
glimpse of hhn. The sublime moment, however, must be
that of his appearance in the Puerta del Sol, and it is with
, a hope to witness It that I have stationed myself in
a room in the Hetet de Paris, the first floor of which has
been destined for the hero's reception. Most of our reenters
ire aware of the locality bearing the name of the Sun's
(nate." It is a large irregular square in the centre of Mathinl,
upon which four of the main longitudinal streets with many
of the transversal ones converge. From my watch tower at
the hotel I can easily look up and down almost the whole of
these streets. It is little to say that they are onto vast mass
of colour and life. The armed people of Madrid muster four
thnes as strong as lever saw them. There are no military in
sight, but bands of Italian sympathisers, of picturesque
Catalonian volunteera, of smart sailors and marines
from the patriotic men-of-war, are tramping down
to and front every direction, with the most inspirit-
iog strains of music to mark the pace. Nelle of the
regiments of the garrison are visible from this spot,
but I understand that the whole force is out fronting the line
of march along the Prado, and as far as the Fuente Castel-
lana on the one side, awl the Atocha station on the other.
Anything mote gay and gaudy than this happy, excited
population and their draperied, begarlanded, am! be.
Ohm-larded dwellings cannot be imagined. The din of their
VOille3 as they talk is hardly to he overpowered by the roar
of their stunts as they cheer. The show of last Saturday,
for Serrano, was all that the care of the Govern-
ment and the goodwill of the people could unite to
produce. lint this is the real people's day. The
Madrid population needed neither impulse nor direction
to prepare for Print a reception the like of which
event I, with all my Italian. German, and Anter;men creel,
lections, can hardly boast of having ever witnessed. hark
here is the Marseillaise, with a lot of French refugees
striving to outtlin Itiego's hymn. if ark, again ! Here is
Inaribabli's March, with the Italians, determined that no one
shall outdo them in that kind of noise whieh they first
reduced to rule. Ban ! Here is vocal music ; a choir of
singing students matching past with flags and streamers, their
notes rising melodious above the babel of street cries of
newspaper vendors, hawkers of sticks, and lemonade sellers.
And, look ! What a day of days even for the sunny climate
of Madrid ! what depth of sky ! what glow of heat ! what
throb of blood in every vein, rousing all the quickest faculties
of mind and heart, and making enthusiasm natural
eVell tie thin meanest dullard ! The 11101 TOW may he cloudy
and lemony for a country all of whose changes have for the
last my pea ilmoot Iwo:WI: been for the 'worst. hut

1 who would not live the day for the day's sake? Who cou I. i r
harlimu any eller feeling than those of the present joy and
hope? Who wonY not give these Deople full credit toe the
order, tin harmony, the intelligence, and ne.derati,t; the.)
have hi.. hate, exhildted, and give In t, the height an.ieipa.
Lions which it is so natural for them to chertili i

I am still so stunned and bewildered by the din and
turmoil front tebittli I have just beee marbled to snake my
escape that I hardly think my han would I, E I,:teiently
steady to obey the behests if the brain were even this latter
to be se far recomposed an to attempt to describe the luau-
scribable.
I tilol only one word fit to characterise the popular
enthusiasm by whieh the population of Madrid have been
possessed for the last ten hours, and that word is—madness.
There has been much of patriotic instinct in the reception
given to Print, much of hero-worshiP, much also of mere
love of fun and Carnival show. You are aware that in these
Southern countries relights] itself is half theatrical. Throw
together the Corso of Shrovetide and the procession of the
Fete. Dieu, add frantic shouts anti shrieks and a Babel of
tongues, substitute polyglot songs for Latin psalms, and
Prim for the puppet of old Carnival or for "the Doty of
Holies," then collect all the mob of Paris, Milan, and Naples
within the same walls, and you will have some idea of the
grandest of Madrid political holidays. Bear in mind that I
have had more than my share of festivities and pageantries of
this nature. I have accompanied King Victor Emmanuel in
his triumphal progress throughent the cities of the -Emilia,
Tuscany, and !militarily ; I was at Naples on the occasion of
Garihaliii's estrange: I have seen Benles's army on its march
along Pall-mall ; some great popular commotion I have wit-
nessed in Paris, in Frankfort, in New York, and even in this
, very sante Madrid ; but the difference between this and all
other memorable days of my life is as wide as the interval
that parts soberness from intoxication.
It Is important to observe that no city In the world taco
well contrived for an exhibition of this sort as Madrid,
because no other city is so admirably centralised ; no city
hats a heart upon which the blood from all its arteries so
ft rably and so Inevitably flows. The Puerta del Sol leads
from everywhere to everywhere. Put yourself in a stab, give
the driver any direction, his way must needs lie through this
charmed locality. There are only four streets in Madrid,
and the Sun's Gate is their focus. Let the radii and the
centre make room for 200,000 bodies as they can. In the
20e,000 bodies must squeeze. Bring even the whole of
London to view the progress of the Princess of Wales from
London-bridge to Paddington, and you will have the London
milliona ranged along a five or six miles' line, every thorough-
fare choked up with its own crowd, but no particular spot '
doomed to bear the crowd of all the other thoroughfares
put together. But here the multitude spreads out in a
thousand streams to the circumference, only to flow back in
a thousand channels to the fountain-head. It is this power
of condensation which makes the Madrid mob the mightiest
mob in the world.
Prim's arrival had been announced for one or two o'clock
In the afternoon. Royal punctuality was, however, never
observed in Spain, MAI In monarchial times. It could
hardly be expected to prevail in an epoch sd revolutionary
crisis. The Lazzaroni of Naples were greatly put out when
King Victor Emmanuel, at the time of his first solemn
entrance, kept them waiting from hour to hour. "CAisse
'no Re lieferte omo 1" they exclaimed—" Do you call this
gentle king? Ile promised to be here at noon, aud he has
put off the performance till sunset." The _Madrid populace,
however, seem to look upon the waiting as the best part of
the entertainment. Instead of one or two o'clock Prim only
arrived at the Atocha station 51 three, and it had struck live
before lie had forced his way to the Puerta del sot, taking
no less than two hours in riding over a distance of little
more than A mile. Weary as those four hours of expecta-
tion might seem, time Madrid people found a way of
adding to their tale by sallying out into the street at
ten In the morning. By ten o'clock In the morning
all the bands were out—commissions of district Juntas, de-
putations of Italian, French, Swim, English, and German
residents ; bands of students, sailors, marines, Catalans;
heroes and martyrs of the J nnuary, June, and August in-
surrections all swarming and jostling together, crossing
each other, mei pressed upon In front, in the rear, on both
cities, by the tramping battalions id armed people es they
come to muster from their various smarten. Grim and
dingy and unwashed those pntriot warriors did look, but
harmless 30141 geod-humostrest withal, very little men, many
of them, with very long guns, wearing all sorts of slouched
hats and ragged jackets, without straps, knapsacks, or car-
tridge boxes, with their bayinsetetheatlis clumsily thrust
through their breeches pockets. They were the only force
afield, at least in the interior of the town. No police were
out, no attempt at control or direction was made. The
throng, organised or unorganised, was left to make its own
way as it COUIII. The mass was swaying and waving and reel-
ing •, the Puerta del Sol was like a huge stoniach bolting down
food by loads, and labouring uneasily to digest it by dribleta.
Vet there was gaiety and comintness,tind even beauty and sub-
limity, in all that wortiloful cram, something irresistibly
catching in the animation of that vast sea of heads, something
unspeakably thrilling in that prodigious confusion of in-
cessant whirlwind of frantic shouts. .1 never saw a populace
in such terrible earnest. This is the first day on which the
Madrid people seemed to me really conscious et freedom ;
the first day on which they appeared to realise to its full
extent the change that promises to make them men. There
was its own share of fun and drollery, doubtleee, but on the
whole the multitude W. bent on a real demonstration of
love and hatred ; the thoughts of the dynasty which had
forged their chains, and of the Liberator who had broken
them, were uppermost in every man's mind. Thie was,
indeed, the last day of the Ihturlen domination.
With all lime reverence to the memory of Murillo and
Velasquez be it said, the Spaniards are AO artists. The
arches erected here and there hi the s meets of Aleala
(Jeronimo were very poor performances. The trophies of
flags and pennons and streamers, arms, devices, and
draperies, decorating almost every house and window, and
parading every street, did not rise above the merit of gaudy
mediocrity. Music also Is at a very low ebb In, Spain, to
judge from the villainous discord of the citizen and even of
the military bands, or from the notes of that poor Riege's
Hymn which they hare been dinning into our ears from
morning to night. An unspeakable relief in the midst of
their jarring eliarivari was that most sympathetic of all
popular airs, the " Marseillaise," and one of two of the songs
sung by the Italian opera company which has here gone
mail with democracy, and which has been fore-
most in all patriotic displays for this last week.
There was a chorus from the old. opera Donna Caritea,
which was dignified into a national hymn at the time of the
insurrection of Central Italy in 1031, and which was oddly
enough revived by Tamberlik, the master of these revels,
whose portly person was conspicuous as he rolled and rol-
licked at the head of his troupe, anti whose deep and mellow
voice was beard bellowing above the choir and above the
shrill trumpet-blast of the stirring accompaniment. The
effect of that strain was absolutely magic :
'Aspra del milker—nen ell' e Is vita,
Al tempo dell' acciar—glorist c' ill Vita ;
Chi per la patria muor—vissuto asset ;
La Donde dell' allor—non langue mar;
Piuttosto che languir—sotto i tiranni,
E' meglio di morir--sul liar degli atm'," ske.
The strain reaches me yet from an adjoining square, as I sin
here writing late in the night.
Detaiis, however, are not of great consequence when
attention is absorbed by chaotic variety. There is music in
the blending of even discordant notes if the orchestra is SAI
a sufficiently extensive scale; and there is beauty in the mass
even of tawdry colours if the picture is spread avers canvass
of sufficient vaetness. There Is an ineffable delight in sights
that are merely bewildering ; au unaccountable enjoyment
in sounds that are simply stunning. Our nerves take a sort
of wild pleasure in that uttermost strain of their powers of
endurance, and enjoyment springs strangely from mere
reaction against pain.

impressed a light kiss on her smooth white brow. We wero
ills good deal excited at the moment, and the hurrah which
greeted this act I A amiable courtesy rather startlasi the 1.
Spaniard sand Italians who were in the room.
11.

It is related, that when General Prim landed at
Barcelona, the other day, attired in full uniform, some
of the democrafl in the crowd desired him to strike off
the 'Royal crown from his kepy's ; but this he instantly
refused to do, saying that ' Spain could not dispense
ith the Crown, however compelled she might be to
look for a worthier wearer;" from which remark it
seems probable that the General will try to retain, as
far as possible, its present institutions, and its present
form of government.