The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1898-06-18

~ TN
nells ana worse Institutes of vice.
III all the reserve proper in -sno.L-
US o. large mass of humanity it NAV
ne SAID That the official and profess;ono,
glasses or Spain, wherever they NAV he
10 aound' are true children of ia Cloaca y,
81 Heli iolloWing OF Madrid fashions means
enlnlnate dissipation, an affecta+ion os
the moral standards of the Paris ..sn
s'as and the life of the chean Franch
roma NJ which is the coveted forh;dao,,
irult or the Spanish upper middle cia &C
schoolboy The Spaniard of this class
IS not as a rule addicted to outdoor SHORTS
or OF 10 anything outdoor except the
bles before the cafe, where he sins sneser
ana water onyau or absinthe. and tha
penches on the shady side of the hill
TINS. He. may boast of a speal,inr. 80
qualntance with a .Frascuela or a MAJ
Santlnl' but he is not the sort of materja,
rom Whlch the ranks of the great "es
padas' are recruited The few we'll to
40 Spaniards of the Madrid pesuasion
VINO AFFECT athletic sports are gener,1,1.
regarded, and with some reason, as mere
angloman1acs. They are hardly more than
handful-the sons of very wealthy fami-
hes VINO nave been educated at English
schools. 49,, -
Altogether this class of spaniards the
class VINO follow at greater or less dis
lance the customs of Madid and the FASH
IONS IN tailoring of London or Paris are
fabby, invertebrate lot. But they must
nave money. The salaries paid to minor
government officials are small, partly be-
cause they are so numerous It only re-
mains for the small officials to initiate
Cne great officials and plumber This they
do by maay curious and ingenious de-
vices And so we have the polite, easy
hammered. "educated Spaniard who rep
resents spain to most foreigners-the
shltty, unWholesome, veneered Spania I'd
OF the legations and the colonial admins
trations, who is so pleasant as a casual
acquaintance and so nauseating if one
sees too much of him. This is the gov
ornamental pattern of Madrid.
There. is no reason why we Americans
should stick our heads into the sand
after the traditional manner of the hunt
ed ostrich, and refuse to see the other
Spaniard--the Spaniard of the provinces
mot the child Of the Sixteenth century
Spain, but of CASTLE, Leon Aragon, Cata-
ionia, or whatever his country would
have been If there had been no Philip
II: A young English mining engineer
who had lived a long time, among the
Spanish people of the provinces summed
up his impressions like this: 1.-THE COM
mon people are the only gentlemen in
Spain, and the gentry are beastly cads."
This Was rough generalization: The
north and east, swear with a frequency
and cultural vigcr that are not gentle
manlike; those of Malaga and Cadiz are
more Berber than European. The lower
classes of Madrid constantly indulge in
verbal obscenities which, if translated,
would bring blush to the. cheek of a
Bowery bartender. There is a free and
easy atmosphere about the home life Of
the country people, in the "pueblos'' as
well as in the little separate huts of the
Murician and Valencian garden-patch
farms, that would shock the feelings of
any university settlement Summer"
Conventional ladies do not enjoy the sort
of jokes that raise a laugh among the
rural matrcns in a third-class railway
carriage in the Spanish provinces, or in
a provincial plaza on a village Fiesta"
at least NOT in these days, though from
all accounts good Queen Bess would have
relished such sallies in her time. Cen
tlemen of the latest school do not COM
monty beguile the tedium of long rides on
muleback by whiting off slices of raw
onions and chewing them, nor will such
a gentleman, even in the heat of an argu-
ment suddenly and swiftly hurl his onion
knife into the midst of an adversary's
intestines. And your perfect gentlemen
of these days will battle at least often
enough to avoid being malodorous.
But then it must be remembered that
my young mining friend formed his esti-
mate of the Spanish peasant as in COM
parisons with the gentry of the Madrid
pattern. In such matters there is the, es-
sential and the accidental. Onions are
matter of taste, SO that some would even
prefer chewing raw onions to chewing to-
bacco. Bathing is VIGOROUSLY a,'latter.
day habit even among English speaking
peoples. The sudden and uncomfortable
use of the onion knife for homicidal pur-
poses seems to be as much national
failing among the peninsular populations
as drunkenness is among the. Anglo.
Saxon. A Catalonian priest once told me
Of a country mission where he preached
several hundred peasants into giving ur
their navajas." An altar boy went
through the congregation with large
clothes basket which he brought back tc
the priest full of these big knives.
But" said the priest, II suppose they
all got new knives before, the end Of the
month: They must have knives to. cu,
their eonions and their bread. Then they
get angry, and the knives fly.'' .-
Even the admirer Of the Spanish peas,
ant must admit that he is a savage He
rarely knows how to read and is not
ambitious to learn. His intelligence Is the
plain, coarse mother wit that makes his
talk long string of proverbs and oaths.
Such learning as the poorer people of
Spain have is most often the perquisite
or the youngest members of over large
families, who have been, for reasons of
economy, turned over in their babyhood
to founding institutions. Being poor and
ignorant, he is coarse and passionate
But such virtues as he has are his own
growing out from within. Sometimes he
is dishonest, but the national itch for
picking and stealing does not generally
spread beyond the governing classes and
those in contact with them. Now that
brigandage has been put down, the tramp
ton vi $ SNpv
out meeting anything but courtesy from
the country people, for, though dirty.
they are polite to strangers, and they only
attempt homicide when grievously offend.
ed. Strangest of all ITO those who have
encountered the church door beggars-the
"pordioseros'' Of the towns and the pes
tilent "show" gypsies of the Alhambra
caves, the country people of Spain have
a personal pride that is strongly antipa-
thetic to the mendicant habit.
1t Is curious and interesting to trace
am ong the common people Of Spain some
thing Of the reality of that Spanish;
honor" Of which the official classes so alb
surdly and frequently parade the shadow.
One can see it in odds and ends of popu-
lar customs and ways. The poorest,peas-
ant woman will not offer a beggar a
broken piece Of bread, for he is Span
lard. Any muleteer who colloquially
swears by the Supreme Being will on
really SERIOUS occasion f.. lot swearing
pledge you his ''palabra de honor" The
fiercest and the bloodiest quarrels among
individuals on the southern slopes of the
Pyrerees still have the honor of some
woman at the bottom Of them. It Is only
among the most AFFECT mining popula-
tons that one finds low price set on
feminine virtue among the poor. and occa-
sionally hears of mother trading on he,
daughters homer.
Then, again, there must have been at