Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain

by Annette M. B. Meakin

The poor of Coruña subsist chiefly upon vegetables. I devoted some of my time to visiting them, that I might get a correct idea of their circumstances and the kind of life they led. One woman who earned her daily bread as a charwoman took me up to her room on the fourth storey of a house that appeared to be built almost entirely of wood. The room, which she shared with her little daughter, contained two beds, a table, and a chair. It had neither windows nor fireplace—in fact, no opening of any kind but the door, and was so dark even with the door open that she had to light a candle in order to show me the size of the room and the prints and photographs with which the walls were adorned. For this abode the woman paid three pesetas (half a crown) a month. There were several such rooms on the same floor, tenanted in a similar manner, and a general kitchen with charcoal cooking hearth was at the service of all. These poor people take a cup of coffee or chocolate for their early breakfast, and their dinner consists of a bread-and-vegetable soup, called Gallegan broth (kaldo Gallego), which is famed all over Spain, and a sardine, or other fish, on the days that they can afford it. More coffee is drunk than chocolate; they find that it is a greater stimulant. The best chocolate in Coruña costs four pesetas (three shillings and fourpence) a pound, but that used by the poor costs them only one peseta (tenpence) a pound. On leaving the house, I asked the poor woman if she was not afraid of the house taking fire, seeing that it was all of wood and that they used candles so constantly. “Oh no,” she replied, smiling; “I have never heard of a house in Coruña being burnt, and I have lived here all my life.” Coming out of the door, I met a woman with a market gardener’s heavy basket on her head filled with cabbages and potatoes; in her arms she carried a little baby.

My next visit was to a large building which served as a home for the aged poor, and was managed entirely by Hermanitas de Caridad, “Little Sisters of Charity.” All was spotlessly clean. A Sister showed us round. Each dormitory contained some twenty beds, with red coverlets and snowy sheets and pillows; one could hardly believe they had ever been slept in. There was a lavatory with six washing-stands attached to each dormitory. The old men lived quite apart from the old women. We found one old lady in a bed that she had never left for seven years; she appeared well cared for, and quite comfortable. The building is modern, having only been completed fifteen years ago. It stands in its own grounds, where it has its own laundry and drying-ground. In the garden there is a pleasant summer-house, where the old people can sit almost every fine day in the year.

As is usual in such institutions, no servants were kept; the Sisters did everything, with the help of the sturdiest of the inmates, who were employed in scrubbing the floors, etc. The linen closets, with their tastefully folded linen, were a sight to see; glass cupboards full of linen reached to the ceiling and covered the walls. The air in all the apartments and corridors was fresh and pure, and the sun shone in at the windows, from which there was a pleasant view of the seashore. On the upper storey were a number of rooms destined for single or widow ladies who had no homes of their own, and were glad to have a cheap and quiet retreat. I saw one of them standing at her door as we passed along the corridor; she was in negligé attire, and was evidently surprised to see visitors. We bowed, and seeing her inclined, entered into conversation with her. She was a woman about fifty-five years of age, with powdered cheeks and grey hair frizzed over her forehead. My charwoman-guide then pulling me aside, informed me in an excited whisper that the lady was the Contessa de P. “I have worked for her as cook,” she added, “and I can assure you she smokes like a man.” The Sister who stood by, a nun, with black hood and white bib, overheard the last words, and said severely, “She does not smoke here.” The wide glass-covered verandah was brilliant with the January sunshine: here the inmates could take the sun, as they say, and can truly say, in Spain. The chapel, which we inspected next, had a gallery for the nuns, with fretwork-covered windows looking down upon the pauper congregation. When there is a great function, all the chairs are taken away, and the people stand. There was also a neat dispensary, and an infirmary. The dining-rooms were cheerful and spacious, with marble-topped tables. The kitchen was a fine, airy room, with a great stove in the centre. In all the public institutions that I visited in Galicia the stove invariably stood in the middle of the room, thus making it possible for a number of persons to stand round it and cook without interfering with one another. The house is in the hands of twenty Sisters, under a Mother Superior. In my conversation with the lady boarder I learned that the poor there are always discontented, and never cease to long for their liberty and for the old life of begging at the street corners—where they had neither shelter nor warm clothing nor food to eat. I really thought, after seeing them huddled together in groups in the great, cheerful, but monotonous rooms, that while I had a spark of vitality and endurance left in me I should feel as they did, and prefer the life of the street with all its risks and privations to that deathly sameness. Monotony is a slow and sure poison; it can undermine even the constitution of a pauper. As for the poor of Coruña, they are chiefly fisher-folk, and the coast being, as I have said, the most dangerous in Spain, cases of drowning occur with painful frequency, so that the industry is a very precarious one, and the number of the destitute is continually increasing. Corpses of fishermen are constantly being washed ashore, and there is nearly always a body lying in the mortuary to be identified.

There are only eleven tobacco factories in Spain. These are most of them palatial; they all belong to the Government. The one at Coruña, like the rest, is managed for the Government by a private Company, which is allowed to appropriate 10 per cent. of the net profits. It was once a very large factory, with six thousand women workers, mostly the wives, widows, and daughters of fishermen, or men who have emigrated to South America.[191] On the occasion of my visit, I found three thousand women at work. Besides these, there were forty men employed in carrying the heavy cases to the warehouse. The tobacco was supplied from various places, chiefly from Kentucky, Mexico, Brazil, St. Domingo, Cuba, and the Philippine Islands. In Ford’s day, an enormous amount of tobacco was smuggled into Spain from Gibraltar, but that is not the case now.

Common cigars sell at about three a penny. Some of the workers have very nimble fingers, and can prepare nine bundles, of forty cigars each, in a day, while the slowest workers only manage about five bundles. They begin work at 7 a.m., and continue till 8 p.m., bringing their dinner with them, and leaving it in a neighbouring house, where it can be warmed up if they wish. The women with whom it is left bring it in baskets to the workers, who eat it where they sit, without leaving their seats. In the factory at Seville they have a separate dining-room, but none is provided at Coruña. Every fortnight the women are paid according to the quality and quantity of the work they have done. We walked among them as they worked, sixteen at a table, with coloured handkerchiefs over their heads and tied tightly under the chin, with a three-cornered shawl crossed over the breast.

The manager told me that the work was not unhealthy, because it was all done by hand, and there was none of that fine powdery dust which is so injurious to the health of workers in factories run by machinery. At the entrance of each workshop we saw a candle burning in front of a crucifix.

It has been reckoned that every adult male inhabitant of Madrid smokes on the average twenty pesetas’ (sixteen shillings) worth of tobacco in a year; but in Barcelona each man smokes nineteen pesetas’ worth. The smallest quantity is consumed in the Balearic Islands, where the tobacco consumed by each male values three pesetas and a half. The richer the town, the better the quality of the tobacco consumed. The wood for making the cases in which the cigars are packed is of a special kind, and is sent for the purpose from Cuba. The best cigars manufactured at Coruña are the Farios. Pipes are seldom used, except by a few sailors.

The streets of Coruña have much that is Oriental about them. Men walk about carrying skins of water, just as they do in the East. I found a woman cook with all her cooking apparatus neatly arranged around her at the street corner, and cooking away as unconcernedly as if in her own kitchen. I asked of the people standing near what she was cooking, and learned that she was making cakes for the approaching Carnival. We saw that the men were riding on Moorish saddles; these have been in use in Spain ever since the Moors introduced them. We also saw many sacks of pine cones that had been brought in from the villages to be sold as fuel for kitchen fires. People store their cellars with them as we should store ours with coal.

Many of the houses in Coruña are built with an air shaft in their centre; this has a glass top, and the light that descends the shaft lights four rooms on each landing. Those on the third floor get a fair amount of light, but those on the first fare badly. This is certainly a degree better than having no daylight except that which can penetrate into the room from an open door, as is often the case in Spanish houses.

Coruña is a fashionable seaside resort in summer; its hillsides are dotted with villas belonging to the wealthy of Madrid and other big towns. Three bull-fights take place there every year, and an occasional carousal is held in the bull ring. Families who have not a villa of their own hire flats for the season. There is no hotel life, and what hotels the town has are only suited to meet the requirements of business men and commercial travellers. Donkey picnics are a favourite amusement with summer visitors, and delightful excursions are made upon pack-saddle into the wooded valleys and the picturesque hills with which the town is surrounded on all sides, except where the sea washes its shores.