The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-07-21
The Chatfleld Paper Co. stsfs sss-sSos s5oss Most Complete Line of Paper and Iwine in the State


 ern in style and architecture This is
 especially true of the heart of the city.
 The exact center Is the great square called Puerto del Sol CGate of the
 Sun'),, because the eastern gate of the The fine structures that surround It. Ii
 old fortress originally occupied the spot. pale-gray stone and marble, with their
 light ornamental balconies and hand
 some windows, look like bit of Paris,
 or of Buenos Ayres, that wonderful
 new city of the western hemisphere.
 In them are located the principal hotels
 and finest shops, clubs and cafes, and
 the headquarters of the municipal and
 military governments of the city.
 From this point ten principal streets diverge, like the spokes In q wheel.
 Here all the tramway lines meet and
 run off again in all directions. By talk
 ing each of these tram lines in success
 sion and riding to it's end you may get
 a good general impression of the city
 in a few hours, at insignificant expense | for the fare is only two cents. There are few electric traction lines, but for | the most part mules are the propeling l power, and they are dashed to perpet- | ual ruin, up hill and down, till the poor little beasts, whom nobody pities, drop
 dead in their tracks. Some of the streets through which the tramwayS
 pass are so narrow that pedestrians
 have to flatten themselves against the house walls as the cars go by; others
 are steep and winding, and all are very
 roughly paved, though kept in tolerable sanitary condition. As a rule, the streets of Madrid are wider than those
 of southern Spain and their greatest advantage is an abundant supply of
 water. It is of comparatively recent introduction, brought to the city from the Guadarrama mountains, some twenty-five or thirty miles, through an acqueduct, of English construction which cost twenty-five millions of dol lars. It deprived Madrid of one of its most picturesque features, the water carriers, but atones for that loss by giving cool clean streets, plenty of ex- cellent drinking water free of cost, and a chance for verdure in the erstwhile barren parks and gardens.
 Of the multitude of peddlers of every description that swarm Puerto del Sol its sidewalks and fountains, the most noticeable, because most noisy, are the news-venders. Their rasping voices rend the air, in shrieks to be heard above all other sounds-La Epoca, El Imparcial! Fl Globo! La Corresporie den-c-i-a! Newsboys and newspapers as we understand the term, do not ex- 1st In Spain. Blind me and old women the latter often carrying a child on one arm and bundle of papers on the other | have completely usurped the province | of the shrewd and always jolly street | Arab, who is unknown here in that ca pacity. The sheets they sell are | wretched specimens of typography printed upon poor material and meas uring about eighteen by twenty inches. There are several restrictions upon journalism in Spain. for each issue is required to be carefully sifted and re- v1sed before publication, and must al- ways bear the official stamp of the cen sor of the press. A few advertisements, an item or two of court gossip, serial story Of sensational character and no orals worth mentioning, and occasion ally die-away poem by some female subscriber, compose the cotentS. Yet | with all these defects and drawbacks,it is astonishing what numbers of these journals are sold Each of | the several parties and factions must have it's organ; and as every Spaniard is more or less of partisan he consid- CTS himself in honor bound to support the editor who sets fourth his own po- titical creed. Probably La Imparcial l has the largest sale in Madrid-an aver age of twenty thousand copies a day; but La Epoca-a conservative journal | of very old repute, established half a century ago, undou btedly exercises the greatest influence among the upper classes. Neither of them, however Cor both combinedD, begins to compare in as holders of public opiu- ion with our own Journal and Courier or any other first-class newspapers of ! the United States or even with the best journals of Austria Russia and Italy. For fifty years, La Epoca, with its twelve or fifteen thousand circulation, | has been devoted to the high conserva- tive party. Its editor and principal owner, the Marquis de Valdiglesias, can | indite a longer Heading editorial" with more bombast and less meat" in 1t l than any other journalist I ever met. La Epoca's four pages are mostly giv-