The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-12-21
The Spanish Volcano Once More In Erup-
tion-Populnr Tumuls Throughout che Pc

/ ninsuIa.
| Highly important and exciting special cable
dispatches from Madrid show that the terrible
unrest now affecting the popular mind Of Eu-
rope has broken out into the most violent
demonstrations in q quarter not exactly new,
indeed, as seat of trouble, but which had be-
come apparently quiescent Of late. The whole
Spanish Peninsula is agitated with public
meetings, professions, addresses ct cetera,
against the establishment of the kingly author
ty recently conferred by the Cortes upon the
royal Italian Prince Amadeus, Duke of Aosta.
Seville and Granada protest aloud at Malaga
mock funerals have been held to rdcule the
accession Of the stranger; the students OF the
leading university have come out, in vehement
opposition, in the ''talest" Castilian and the
heaviest Latin militant, no doubt; among the
National Guards officers have resigned and are
resigning their commissions in the regular
army others have been banished for insubordi-
nation to the new regime Gas we are left to
infer, and in the navy the state of feeling is SO
bad that it was found difficult to get a regular
war vessel to accompany the commission sent
out by the Cortes to Italy to wait upon the
new King elect, inform him Of his preferment
and escort him back to Spain. In fact
several naval officers have been imprisoned
for disobedience to orders, and an unofficial
commission is about to take upon itself a trip
to Florence for no other purpose than to warn
the King of Italy of the perils that await his
| son in his new realm, where conspiraces
threatening his life are said to have been
already formed on so gigantic scale that the
most Jealous adherents of Amadeus express
the keenest apprehension.
Such, in brief, is the RESUME of intelligence
which goes to confirm the saddest and darkest
doubts that have been entertained with regard
to any good result attending the effort to
restore order to Spain under a monarchcal
government and especially with prince
not ito the manner born" The initiation and
| progress Of this violent natvist Spanish move
ment are also reported in our columns
| 1t is, moreover, another symptom Of the ap-
| palling cataclysm rushing down, at this fateful
moment, upon the whole European system,
whose two great fulcra have been displaced
by the suspension of the Papal temporal power
at Rome, and the tremendous shifting Of mill
tary and diplomatic domination from Paris and
London to Berlin and st. Petersburg. The
terrible time predicted, of "wars and rumors
Of wars" filling the whole earth, would really
seem to be upon us. The nations are angry
and the harvest of the world is rapidly ripen-
ing. When, few weeks since, after the
capitulation of Metz, the Franco Prussan con-
tlict seemed to be cooling off toward an armis-
tice and peace, the note of Prince Gortcha-
koff at once rekndled flame that now
threatens to extend from the banks of the
Shannon and the Thames to the Bosphorus
the Red Sea and the Euphrates, embracing,
as the controversy does, results that would at
once affect the quiet of the British, Russian,
Austrian and Turkish empires. This question
again had begun to die away into hopes of an
early conference and arrangement, when
Prussia's demands on Luxembourg suddenly
involves the anXieties of Belgium, Holland
the scandinavian States Gas the next step) and
even Of isolated Switzerland. Hardly has
the first shock Of this latter news passed over
ere 10! we have popular disturbance in the
city Of Rome, the newly selected capital of
Italy; CONSUMPTION riots at Berlin, and now a
rebellious NOV ement in Spain almost national
in its complexion and proportions. If this be
not the proof of one great, hidden, but ever
active agency, working at this moment with
desperation and with herculean diligence and
force, or the very madness of discord withou,
fixed aim or definite boundary, what are we
to call itP An equally serious inquiry IS how,
when and where is this great deluge of human
passion to subside?
Three months ago the smooth, self-satsfied
dozers of Downing street were just as confident
and secure, in their own minds, from any like
lihood of becoming invov ed in the continental
vortex as our publicists and statesmen are to
day on this side of the water, that all these
things are remote, ali very remote indeed
from us. But the pale messenger who drew
Priam's curtains by night and summoned hin
to the appalling spectacle Of Troy in flames
was quite as welcome to the unhappy king a.
was the diplomatic spectre of Prince Gortcha
kof brandishing the tattered Treaty of Paris tt
the Granville Cabinet We are inclined to thinl
that in like manner to-day's news from Spail
will disturb some other quiet maps on boil
sides of the Atlantic
AT all events the Spanish tumult completes
for us the spectacle of the entire European
Continent in uproar, as large part of it is il
actual warfare. Turn to what point of it WI
will there is actual fighting or the threatening
array of enormous fleets and armies mastering
for battle. The Spanish affair is hot and ripe
for speedy outbreak into the most ferocious
overt acts. The old legitimist and dynastic
factions are furious at the loss of all their
efforts to regain control the clerical
party, taking their cue from the re-
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