The San Francisco call., 1899-02-05

In week I was able to penetrate that
part of lower Madrid which has been
pungently, If not fittingly, named ia
cloaca de ESpana"-1the sewer of Spain.
Leaning on the arm of my friend Pedro,
who had taught me most of the argot
of the campo, l made speciality of the
fair sex, and through. the gossip of
servants, seamStresSeS, flower maidenS,
old peasant women and young artisan
matrons 1 learned even more of the
true heartbeatS of the Spanish people
than through the less accessible medi-
um of the men of their class. l pre-
tended to be an ignorant vaquero and
feigned a fine surprise when told that
war with America existed. The family
we were visiting struck up and began
to jabber as with a thousand tongues
of the bloody defeat of los Ameri-
canos" and | got up and drank with
them for the success of the Spanish
armada" In my heart l said to my
self, thinking of the departed fleet, in
the new famous words of the parents of
the now famous words Of the parents of
veran" C'They will never return'D.
HOW THE PEOPLE FELT.
The populace and the middle classes
seemed TO have great faith in the gov
ernment, but at the mention of Don
Carlos name every one was on the
guard, and preferred to listen instead
of talking. That is an ominous sign in
Spain, for they are as talkative there
as German tishwives and Partisan poll
ticians. There was present an un-
Shaken faith in the invincibility of the
Spanish navy on behalf of these peo-
pie, very few of whom had ever seen a
single one of its ships, and, living
In the center of the country, untitled
for personal observation, they take
blindly what the papers give; the pa
pers-three for cent-of the ''cloaca. y
The blow of defeat, the destruction
of the squadrons of Carvera and Mon
TOTO by American gunfire, struck home
with its mightiest force, not in the
castled circle of the high in power, but
amid the 'gente de panuelo," the strug-
Cling herds of the populace, from whose
forefatherS the crew of the invincible
Armada was picked. In tl-is city of the
four winds, of cafes and theaters, but
no cathedral, no factory buildings; in
this inferno of a satanic climate the
month of July saw the panic of the ig-
norant the misled, the paupers, as they
wept and howled after the defeat. and
cursed the Government they had so
WorShined as the destroye yer of L-neri-
can power. Though the press censor
shi- in Madrid was the Strictest In the
kingdom the truth of the things the
Government was trying to hide leaked
out in some ineXplicable way, though
without causing any actual uprising of
the people except as reported by the
papers.
Had General Toral resisted to
DEATH instead of capitulating after
the first storm of Shafter's army, the
news of his inevitable defeat, coming
at the very heels of the destruction of
the Spanish fleet, would have caused a
rebellion, an uprising of the entire peo-
pie, If not a revolution. The Carlist
agents were probably better posted
on American movements and our power
of organization and initiative than any
spy in the kingdom.
had a passing acquaintance with
Paris, during my "shadowing' there of
Mrs. de LONE, than which a more
thankless job have never undertaken.
She was in constant receipt of exact
and valuable information covering
American movements, but how she sue
ceeded in getting it always remained a
mystery to our secret service, though
1t was felt to a certainty that she was
in intimate connection with American
parties of authority. She is remarka
BILE woman. She knew how to get the
facts and she knew how to make use
of them in a manner so as to elude de-
lection.
ADMIRAL CAMARA'S BLUFF.
When the old battleships Numancia
and vittoria were being fitted at Cadiz.
and the Pelayo was darting about the
coast in way to puzzle even the Mad
rid papers, there were great mobiliza-
tion centers at Cadiz and Barcelona,
and accordingly I spent some time in
either city. Several large merchant