Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-01-05

Madrid, capital of Spain, which
was almost alone among European
countries to emerge from the wal
period with a balance of trade in its
favor and with surplus cash in its
Golfers, is described in the following
| bulletin issued from the Washing
ton, D.. c., headquarters of h Ma
tional Geographic Society. 1t was in
| Madrid that the Spanish Premier,
Senior Dato, was recently assassina-
ted as he was leaving the a OF
Congress.
while Madrid was not made
| from the whole cloth as Canberra,
the new capital of Australia is be-
ing fashioned" says the bulletin,
sin a way it is as truly an artificial
capital. Physically, the rather
bleak table-land on which Madrid
is situated had little to commend
it as a site for a capital or a great
city save the fact that it is almost
the exact geographical center of
Spain. But it was political pres
sure that really pushed the Spanish
court to the former Moorish village
| of Madjrit; because the jealousy of
each other felt by the Castilians, the
1 Aragonese, the people of Toledo and
Seville, and all the other groups
would not permit the selection of
an existing city of importance when
| Spain became united.
Site Like Those in American West
picture a bare plateau in the
semi-arid American West, an in
significant stream several hundred
feet below it's crest, and it's top and
sides deeply carved by erosion,
forming 'arroyos'-the beds of tor
wants forn,nd nuiaE1r in fhn rainN
season, but usually dry. Madrid,
must have been much like this when
4 the Spanish, in their fight to redeem
the Spain irredenta' of those days
captured the place from the Moors
in 1888. Castilian monarchs lived in
the unimportant Madrid off and on
for several hundred years, but it
was first made the seat of the gov
eminent of united Spain in 1860. 1t
is thus n of the youngest of the
great cities and capitals OF Europe.
THE smallness of Madrid when
Philip II made it the Spanish cap
ital brought about by the institu-
ton of a queer tax from which
flowed queer results. 1t was de-
creed that all persons possessing
houses above a certain size must
take in as guests courtiers and no.
bles who attended the court. The
canny SpaniardS who carried on any
building operations took care to
build houses Just short of the mark.
They were termed spite houses by
the courtiers, and the Madrid of a
few hundreds years ago became full
of them.
French Once Held City
"The small houses naturally did
nnt hiring hon I1fxy IN old Madrid In
addition the town was poorly clean
ed anu even in the middle of the
eighteenth century had the reputa-
ton of being one of the dirtiest
capitals in Europe. The Bourbons
early in the eighteenth century began
to build places and public buildings,
however, and the French, during
the brief hold which they had in
Madrid al the height of Napoleon's
power, started a number of m
provements. The network of rails
roads which covered Spain during
the nineteenth century. with Madrid
as their focus, gave the capital its
greatest impetus.
Manufacture, trade, wealth and
population have come in the wake
of the railroads. The population
has passed we'll beyond the 100000
mark and IS increasing rapidly. flHe
streets, fine buildings, and wonder
full parks and promenades have
have transformed the city's appear
ances in the last half century. In
the parks and around the city many
trees have been planted. They have
done away with the aspect of bar
renness and have yer mitigated to
some extent the severity of the hot
summer weather.
Has World Famous Picture Gallery
ITO the east, less than half a mile
from the city's heart,-the Puerta
del Sol, where ten streets meets
the famous Prado and the 'Paseos,
or promenades, that extend 1t to the
northward and the southwark. These
great wide spaces and b~oulevards,
with rows of from five to eight trees
in their center. form one of the most