The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1873-04-12 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

INDUSTRIOUS SEVILLE.  The Special Correepoodent of the Standard sonde over the following Wien:sting letter :  Among the delighis of Seville one of the chiefest must not fail to be enumerated—no shrieking news. boys shove latest editions into the face ef the lounger. I This is not • reading people; for a woman to know how to read was accounted immoral so late as the be• ginning of this century. There are some papers at Seville, nevertheless; among others El Oriente, devoted to Carlism, and La Legitimidad, devoted to the interests of the ex Queen Isabella's son and heir; but they have little to say. In the lack of suicides, etabs in the dark, and pronormiumientos, they are driven to fill up their space with extracts from the almanac, and lists of letters thrown into the post-office without prepayment. Some countryman must have caught the local disease, for in the list given to-day in La Legitimatad it is notified that two envelopes have been indolently committed to the box without stamps, one addressed to Mies Mary, Hyde Park, and the other to Monsieur (an evident misprint for Mister) Francis oMahony, Shankerhill. Should Miss Mary, Hyde Park, or the Irish-Frenchman see this they are requested to "take • note of " it and treat their corms. }andante accordingly on their return. It may be a surprise to some that Carliem has its adherents here, but the surprise will disappear when they learn that there are twenty-five parish churches and 2,000 priests in Seville. Wherever the Church is powerful there Carlism exists, and as the Church is especially powerful amongst the weaker sex, the Spanish women are almost universally Cachets. Many a ferocious intransigente, who spouts fire and brimstone, and death to kings and priests in the clubs, hise to sing very small when he comes home, for Madame doats on Don Carlos, and works slippers for the father confessor. In Seville I should say the istransigente element is feeble; it is strongest, perhaps, in the municipality (which, by the way, ham iwned an edict seourining the cemetery of San Fernando), because this party of action is always on the watch and pushes itself into office ; but the immense majority of the business folk are monarchical, only the' wish to hays the Prince of the Asturias, not Pon Carlos, for their monarch, and all the gentlefolk, without exception, are anti-Republican. I had proof of this the other night at the theatre, where "La Morseling," a comedy intended to glorify the advent of the Republic, was played. The speeches in favour of Federalism very often fell flat, and occasionally were hissed, while the satirical hits at "social liquidation" and the like were uncommonly relished. I made the acquaintance of a wealthy burgess there, • dealer in curiosities, who asked me round to inspect some of the charming peasant dresses of Murcia, now fast falling into disuse, and most grievous of pities it in. He was a Royalist, an Alphonsiet, but his wife was a Carliat. It was Friday wino I visited him, and he old sinner was eating pork chops. "You a Roman Catholic!" I said. "Ah, senor," he apologised, "pity me; I am very frail, but my wife w so good a Christian—l reverence that woman—she has gone to mass without breaking her fast, and when she returns she will only eat one small cup of chocolate." And industrious Seville' Surely it is time to try and justify the heading of this letter by a sentence or two conceneiag the exceptional industries that are pursued in this indolent city. The porcelain manufacture, brought to such perfection by the Moors, has been revived by an Englishman, Mr. Charles Pickman, who bought one of the convents sequestered in 1836, and has transformed it into a factory, where he turns out some capital imitations of the ancient glazed tiles. Seldom has a hive of industry been reared in nobler building or on more lovely site, nestling in gardens, enamelled with flowers, wealthy in fruit trees, and on the banks of a river. Some may consider it profanity that potters' wheels spin and buzz in an edifice once consecrated to religion; but labour is prayer and sanctifies of itself. A number of healthy, handsome girls, are busily engaged colouring and burnishing the ceramic ware which ia fashioned in the old convent, and their joyous songs over their work cannot be very displeasing to the spirit of the pious brethren who preceeded them in the locality, if there be any ground for the poetic belief that the shades of the dead are permitted to haunt the spots they tenanted in the flesh. These Andalusian lessee have to thank the Englishman for giving them the opportunity of earning their bread and olives honeedy and have the happy look of independence. Their full-blooded complexions would shame our pale Manchester factory hands. They can hardly realise how lucky they are to ply such a neat trade in an atmosphere of freshness and fragrance under a sky of clearest blue. No visitor from Greet Britain ehould omit chartering a vehicle for a ride to the Cartuja convent pottery. Another plasm to visit is the great tobacco factory, close by the cathedral, where no less than five thousand women are employed. I went over it yesterday—permission to enter has only to be sought to be obtained. Except for those five thousand workwomen, who are • sight to see in themselves, the visit will not come up to the expectations of those who are prepared to gaze on the mysterious and marvellous. The process of cigar-making is as uninteresting as that of diamondpolishing, and yet one goes to witness both with far more anxious antisipation than to inspect what is far more remarkable—the making of a pin. The building in which the manufactory is carried on is a world in itself—an imposing oblong block, with • railed enclosure in front. Being Government property, it is guarded by soldier's, and the stasnger is apt to take it at firet sight for an enormous barrack. The name of the king in whose reign it was erected (one of the Ferdinands) is still outside. The Republic has not ordered it to be erased, as a French Republic would have done before this. At Madrid, I noticed the same delicacy, or forgetfulness, if you prefer it ; the monogram and crown of Isabella were untouched on the lamp posts in the most revolutionary quarters. The interior of the building consists of long whitewashed balls, divided into colonnades by rows of pillars, horn which spring vaulted ceilings. The women are seated at low tables, about two feet from the grounds In pardeg of half-dozens. They were thin of eTerY KM from the tawny buoy at sixteen