Evening star., 1931-05-12
Check Shows Fl Buildings in
Nation Razed and 10 Others
Damaged-FeW Monks and
Priests Beaten.
TROOPS RESTORE ORDER
IN MADRID DURING NIGHT
$4,000 Religious Workers Flee
City-Nuns Escape Fury OF
Mobs-Disorders Are Blamed on
= Communists and Monarchists by
g.
Government.

BY the Associated Press.
MADRID, May 12.-Jeerlng'
cheering mobs which swept po-
lice, civil guards and soldiers
aside. attacked and burned
churches and church buildings
in the cities of Spain today as
the month-old Republican gov
ernment strove with all its re-
sources to restore order.
Five churches and converts
were burned before dawn In
Seville. Martial law was de-
clared and troops were placed on
the streets in an effort to con-
troll the throngs which ranged
the city, destroying monuments
which marked the centuries OF
Roman Catholicism in Spain.
Similar conditions prevailed in
Malaga, where two churches and
church buildings were burned
during the night; at Cadiz,
where four churches and con-
vents were burned, and at Ali
cante, where four churches and
converts were partly destroyed
by fire and looting. Mobs at
Zaragoza, Cordoba and Bilbao at
tackled and wrecked church build
ings in those cities, but did not
burn them.
Squads Patrol Madrid.
with cavalry. Infantry, tanks and
Ynachine-gun squads patrolling the
streets Of Madrid, the capital was re-
stored TO tranquility during the night,
but not before 10 churches. converts,
monasteries and other ecclesiastical
buildings had been burned to the
ground. while the mobs held on flre-
men and prevented their fighting the
flames a,
church buildings destroyed by fire, ano
perhaps 10 more badly damaged. Dut
not burned Inmates of the buildings
in every case fed, and while a lew
monks and priests were beaten, there
were remarkably few casualties among
them. Nuns in almost every case were
respected by the crowd. Estimates on
the number of religious workers fleeing
Madrid alone ran as high as $4,000.
Efforts to estimate the physical dam
age were mere guesswork, but some
calculated 1t as high as 15O,OOO,UOU
pesetas (normaI value, $4,000 .OOO)
This did not account for priceless
manuscripts, church services, paintings
and vessels, which were destroyed or
stolen. Police arrested several lootefs,
on whom they found gold ana silver
altar ornaments, chalices ana can
delabra taken from the churcnes.
Blames Reds and MOnarchists.
In a radio broadcast. Don Niceto
Alcala Zamora, President Of the repuo-
lie. called upon the nation to put down
the disorders. The government charged
Communists and monarchiStS with re-
sronsibility for the disturbances and de-
clared they were in connivance 10 en-
barrass the new regime. The charge
was echoed in other quarters and wnat-
ever may have been the part OF mon
archists, Communists with red arm
bands were numerous on the StreeS'
stirring up the crowds.
Casualties in the day and night OF
disorders In Madrid we're estimated at
35 injured. most of them slightly. Two
hundred persons. including many prom
inent monarchists and a large number
OF Communists, were arrested.
The-government was hopeful that
employment OF the military would per-
nit today to pass TRANQUILITY but de-
termined that outrages against the
church and church property would not
be permitted. A strict censorship on
outgoing news prevailed and the mon
archist newspaper A B c and the Ro-
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