The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1872-01-25


tor both-and the baby"
What Does he not support his child
and you?"
1t is not his. Senorito. | have known
Pedro but year. and the little one is
we'll grown already. was street-girl,
senorito"
''How old is your child ?"
Two years, Senorito."
And you were only eleven" But
perceiving the tutilty of the question. we
stop and say instead, "what is its name ?"
I'VE call him Chico, senorito"
Chico means ''httle ONE" and will an
swer very well. So we pat the bobbing,
curly head, drop peseta in the tiny palm
tor the little mothers sake, and move on
with heavy heart There are many
toundlings here. When they are expos
ed they are turned over to the sacrstan
on sexton OF the nearest church for dispo-
sition. He stands godfather at the chris
tening by custom, and they are often
named for him, Sacristan so that there
are multitudes of Sacristans who are not
| sections, but soldiers, sailors, peasants,
eagrants or bandits; hut how many such
! grace the community is unknown, for
statistics, like dead men, tell no tales in
I Spain.
! As we walk toward the Calle de Arenal,
! but still in the Paerta, two quavering old
voices break on the ear. grooming Cas-
tillan love song
love my love,
/ My love loves me,
For love il love,
Whereer love be.
| The singers are both blind and aged
even venerable in their rags and penury
| Want has clasped them to her breast for
many a long and tedious year, and held
| them fast. their closest friend They are
! clad in remnants of the national peasant
costume-the man in tight blue Jacket
| with sleeve torn ont. a wooden shirt
| patched small clothes and wretched cam
vas sandals, from which his gnarled toes
protrude A faded girdle encrcles his
waist. and his bare and blackened calves
look like two straight, thin sticks stuck in
his shoes. The poor old woman wears a
/ short petticoat of yellow flannel dotted
| freely with holes and filth, and sort of
| scant corset. Her head and feet are bare
! and travel stained and torn.
Blindness in Spain, an apparently com
mon lnhrmlty among the lower classes. is
thought 10 result in measure from the
habitual use of garbanzoS (donkey-seed)
species of yellow pulse about the size
OF musket ball The water in which
| il is boiled is taken as a soup, and
the pulpy bean. mashed or whole, after
ward eaten unsalted. So universal is this
staple article of diet that Spaniard SAYS
! in parting from his friend and neighbor,
"Adios | am going home to my garban-
los.N As a BritOn to his beef or a son of
Erin to his darling potato.
"-iq4a rresca, N0n10 Us niereS ~ (Wa-
ter fresh As the snows.) This cooling cry
may be heard on all sides through the
capital in prado, calle or plaza, and very
grateful one is upon a sultry, seething Au-
gust day. Water, such As is fit to drink,
commands a price in Madrid, as book
beer in Berlin. and soda water in New
York. A. a summer beverage it is more
sought after than wine and people like il
better for having To pay for it than il il
cost nothing.
>lesta hour approaching, we take the
other and shady side of the Puerta-for
the gari,h sunshine has swung across the
way while we have been scanning and
loiter on couchward At this moment
the beggars are mostly curled up on the
corners of streets or close to the houses.
and doing away with their mouths wide
open and their dogs beside them as if
their mission were quite ended and Moth
ing else remained to- do
Close upon : +. NJ, with extreme pune
tuality. 4 dense cloud sets up from the
heated CITY, a. it it had sprung atire in
spontaneous combustion and was about
To immolAe itself in smoke and ashes
No such dire calamity, if calamity it could
be called, impends, however There is
nothing more serious in progress than
the diurnal holocaust Of cigarettes Come
INTO the street again, supposing YOU have
dined, and look around
Every man we meet, OF every degree
Is smoking a piece of tissue paper. wrap
ped about tobacco. lnhaling and exhaling
smoke with each breath is the absorbing
thing of the moment Beggars and beg
gar's brat alike are tumigating Justify.
and Heaven knows they need it bad
enough
Down the Acala let Us 60 and out up
on the Salon del Praro, and turn our at
tenton TO those two spruce gutar-twang-
erS- One is playing treble, with the aid
OF the Italian capo d'aStro. the other bass,
and they are iingling off with tolerahle
tluency the jotd from FL u0}i}ler0 de 81.
bt=a. to a motley group OF out door critics.
Great is the enthusiasm when the twany-
ing j. loudest and iastest-the genuine
Spanish standard OF musical merit Both
the performers are idle fellows, who have
learned 10 strum an air or two and pOck-
cts cuartos enough thereby of an evening
to admit OF their droning all day. What
more do they want They live when
many die; they eat while many starve
besides, they are ciballeros, and work is
vulgar.
Without knowing it we are in nest of
cripples. Workshops, nurseries OF de-
formity, are said to exist in Spain as in
Paris, where children are stunted or CON
torted, or both. to suit the wishes of the
owner, for speculative purposes At any
rate the number and variety of the MAIN
ed exceed all belief Here is a thing
without nose, one eve out, the other
google, the lips quite gone and row of
Jagged fangs champing outside, all out of
doors. Could anything be more horrible
and yet it is a solemn, ghastly fact, as any
resident OF Madrid will testify
Here is a creature with withered legs,
bare and bleached and twisted like a
corkscrew here another, who seems to
be one huge yellow blister, watery and
swollen. The sight is too loathsome to
describe. If there be a worse crime than
murder, is it not this, of converting the
"human form divine" into bunch of
mangled misery? And vet these wretch
ed creatures are merry among themselves
when there is nobody near to beg of.
The genteel mendicant is not wanting
in Madrid. Men in greasy black coats
buttoned to the chin, and women in tad
the open streets and beg us for the
love of Jesus to help them to meal and
they creep along beside us until in self
defense we bestow the coveted trifle
They are the reduced, the unfortunate,
the bereaved, whose means have dwin-
died or shrunk through fate Or helpless
ness or worse.
Many women in Madrid, girls of six
teen or eighteen, are simply beasts OF