Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-09-25
NO. 227
THE CONsCRIPTION IN SPAIN.

| was standing with crowd of work.
worn mothers, and girls whose eyes were
red with tears, outside the drawing-room
Tor conscripts, while the lots were being
drawn; four or five of the poor bronze
laced mothers were counting their beads
ana praying to the God who. they thought,
had wel-nlgh forsaken them; as many of
the poor girls threw themselves on their
Knees IN the dusty, straw-littered street,
crying out "Dios miO Dos mio 2, and
throwing dust and the pdja or chopped
straw that Uttered the street, into the rich
folds OF their magnificent hair. Their
bronzed, brown, dirty faces; their blood
shot eyes, the dust minging with the tears
that flowed down their quivering cheeks,
their passionate cry, with their ewes up-
turned to heaven. My God my God
Ali Ali Ahi!' all these formed a scene
that may well be added to a chapter on
the sorrows of the poor. Sturdy, reckless
young fellows, the lads drawn care but
little; as with the higher, SO with the lower
classes in Spain, all the love, truth, stead
lastness, and purity is to be found among
the women, to which they add passion
ateness OF Observation-Disclosures for the
OBJECTS least worty of (which an conly
be called sublime, which is really divine,
ana a mt witness to and likeness or shad-
ow OF the love of Him who is '.kind to
the unthankful even, and the evil.r /
have mixed with Spanish women of all
classes, and can only say that the stories
about the their looseness of morals when
married are mere inventions OF travellers
who know neither the heart nor the honor
OF the women of Spain. The men are
very corrupt, l grant, whether married
or single, whether high or low, but no
married woman ever goes wrong unless
her husband first is unfaithful to her. The
code OF honor Is strange one, but tacitly
acknowledged. They say, .'If he is not
true to me. am free from any obligation
to be true to him ~ And as to a married
woman flirting. or girl proving heart
less jilt, is thing unknown among the
women of Spain. They leave those silly
but pernicious ioibles to their sisters in
frivolous France or (so-colled) religious
England. Yet once more. A few weeks
since was witness, at two wayside rail-
way stations on the line from Madrid to
Cordova, or TWO OF the most characteristic
scenes it has been my lot to witness in
Spain, in connection with the conscription.
AT the one staton-it rends my heart to
recall the scene-the young lover OF
Castilian lassie was being taken away,
with batch OF eight or nine others, by
the Civil Guard, to serve in the army. A
sorrowing crowd of women, wringing
their hands, crying aloud, shrieking with
mental suffering that could not be sup
pressed, or as if their hearts would burst,
came with the lads, and gave them their
last burning kiss, made more dear, surely,
to God and man, by the scalding tears that
chased over its imprint. say ''imprint."
for the passionate violence with which
Spanish girl gives her last kiss Cor what
may be her last kiss) leaves quite little
dent even upon mans hard, bronzed
face. and you cannot forget it easily or
think of it lightly. Often it Is all they
have, poor girls, 10 give, and well and
tervently it is given. One poor girl threw
herself on the platform, tore out her hair
by handiuls, rolled her head on the ground
until the blood actually started and trick
led from many scratch over her dirt
smeared cheek. Her cries were so pitt
eous as her friends held her back, that
even stout soldiers in the carriage with
me said, turning their backs, lifting their
cigarettes. aud leaning out OF the opposite
windows, So it, | wish the train would
90 on" | tried to make the poor girl
take few dollars to repair her soiled and
tattered dress, (she was but Gitan, used
to labor in the tield.) But no, she flung
the money on the ground, and her screams
of agony as the train moved off were
heartrending. The women, in my third
class carriage, were in tears and only an
utterly heartess and inhuman man could
have sat unmoved. Yet one more scene. AT
at wayside station, near Andujar $50
well known to those who buy and sell the
porous water-jars that alone can keep the
"Agud treScd. Jrtd, pura." during the
tropic heats OF summer in Andalusia,) l
saw, from the window of the carriage in
which sat, a poor. barefooted, or sandal
footed girl run for full IA quarter OF a mile,
in a baking July sun, alongside the train
in which her lover, or it may have been
her husband, (possbly, too, her seducer,)
was being carried away as a conscript TO
his duties. The girls heaving brown
breast, and beating warm heart tailed her
at last, and she fell, exhausted, face fore
most by the side of the line, and l saw
her no more. "Once in the clutches ofthe
Government, whether as prisoner or sold
ier," so say the Spanish poor, and so say
they truly, "our mozos ii. e. lads) are OF
no more value than dogs: their lives are
counted as dogs lives" But the sound
of woman's wild waiting soon dies away,
and woman's tears are soon torgotten.-
femDle Bar