Spanish Life in Town and Country

by L. Higgin; Eugène E. Street

"True it is that our insular manners form at first a bar to our intercourse with the Spaniard, who has been brought up in a school of deliberate and stately courtesy somewhat foreign to our business turn of mind; but how superficial this difference is may be seen by the strong attachment Englishmen form to the country and her people, when once the strangeness of first acquaintance has worn off; and those of us who know the country best will tell you that they have no truer or more faithful friends than those they have amongst her people."

Speaking of her labouring classes, and as a very large employer of labour in every part of the Peninsula he had the best possible means of judging, this writer says:

"The Spanish working man is really a most sober, hard-working being, not much given to dancing, and not at all to drinking. They are exceptionally clever and sharp, and learn any new trade with great facility. They are, as a rule, exceedingly honest—perfect gentlemen in their manners, and the lowest labourer has an aplomb and ease of manner which many a person in a much higher rank in this country might envy. When in masses they are the quietest and most tractable workmen it is possible to have to deal with. The peasant and working man, the real bone and sinew of the country, are as fine a race as one might wish to meet with—not free from defects—what race is?—but possessed of excellent sterling qualities, which only require knowing to be appreciated. I cannot say as much for the Government employees and politicians. Connection with politics seems to have a corrupt and debasing effect, which, although perhaps exaggerated in Spain, is, unfortunately, not by any means confined to that country only."[3]

In Spain to-day everything is dated from "La Gloriosa," the Revolution of 1868, the "Day of Spanish Liberty," as it well deserves to be called, and there is every reason to look back with pride upon that time; because, after the battle of Alcoléa, when the cry raised in the Puerta del Sol, Viva Prim! was answered by the troops shut up in the Government offices, and the people, swarming up the rejas and the balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance, the Queen and her camarilla had fled across the frontier, the Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their positions at the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns, after the brutal assassination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo, were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of interested demagogues on the passions of people misled and used as puppets.

With the advance of commerce and industry, and the massing of workers in the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this, or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing. The improved railway and steamer communication with parts of the country heretofore isolated, much of it only completed since this book was begun—in fact, within the last few months—is bringing the northern and western ports into prominence. Galicia now not only has an important industry in supplying fresh fish for Madrid, but has a good increasing trade with Europe and America. Pontevedra and Vigo, as well as Villagarcia, are improving daily since the railway reached them. Fresh fruit and vegetables find a ready market, and new uses for materials are coming daily to the front. Esparto, the coarse grass which grows almost everywhere in Spain, has long been an article of commerce, as well as the algaroba bean—said to be the locust bean, on which John the Baptist might have thriven—for it is the most fattening food for horses and cattle, and produces in them a singularly glossy and beautiful coat. This bean, which is as sweet as a dried date, is given, husk and all, to the mules and horses at all the little wayside ventas, and is now used in some of the patent foods for cattle widely known abroad. The stalk of the maize is used for making smokeless powder, and the husks for two kinds of glucose, two of cotton, three of gum, and two of oil. Glucea dextrina paste is used as a substitute for india-rubber. These products of the maize, other than its grain, are employed in the preparation of preserves, syrup, beer, jams, sweets, and drugs, and in the manufacture of paper, cardboard, mucilage, oils and lubricants, paints, and many other things. The imitation india-rubber promises to be the basis of a most important industry. Mixed with equal portions of natural gum, it has all the qualities of india-rubber, and is twenty-four per cent. less in cost.

A great deal has been said about the depreciation of the value of the peseta (franc) since the outbreak of the war with America, but this unsatisfactory state of affairs is gradually mending; and the attention of the Government is thoroughly awakened to it. The law of May 17, 1898, and the Royal decree of August 9 provide that if the notes in circulation of the Bank of Spain exceed fifteen hundred millions, gold must be guaranteed to the half of the excess of circulation between fifteen hundred and two thousand, not the half of all the notes in circulation. The metal guarantee, silver and gold, must cover half of the note circulation, when the latter is between fifteen hundred and two thousand millions, and two-thirds when the circulation exceeds two thousand. But the Bank has not kept this precept, and there has, in fact, been an illegal issue of notes to the value of 6,752,813 pesetas. So states the Boletin de la Cámara de Comercio de España en la Gran Bretáña of April 15, 1901.

The Boletin, after giving an account of the English custom of using cheques against banking accounts, instead of dealing in metal or paper currency only, as in Spain, strongly advocates the establishment of the English method. It is only in quite recent years that there has been any paper currency at all in Spain; the very notes of the Bank of Spain were not current outside the walls of Madrid, and had only a limited currency within.

Barcelona has long been called the Manchester of Spain, and in the days before the "Gloriosa" it presented a great contrast to all the other towns in the Peninsula. Its flourishing factories, its shipping, its general air of a prosperous business-centre was unique in Spain. This is no longer the case. Although the capital of Cataluña has made enormous strides, and would scarcely now be recognised by those who knew it before the Revolution, it has many rivals. Bilbao is already ahead of it in some respects, and other ports, already mentioned, are running it very close. Still, Barcelona is a beautiful city; its situation, its climate, its charming suburbs full of delightful country houses, its wealth of flowers, and its air of bustling industry, give a wholly different idea of Spain to that so often carried away by visitors to the dead and dying cities of which Spain has, unfortunately, too many.

It is becoming more common for young Spaniards to come to England to finish their education, or to acquire business habits, and the study of the English language is daily becoming more usual. In Spain, as already remarked, no one speaks of the language of the country as "Spanish"; it is always "Castellano," of which neither Valencian, Catalan, Galician, still less Basque, is a dialect—they are all more or less languages in themselves. But Castellano is spoken with a difference both by the pueblo bajo of Madrid and also in the provinces. The principal peculiarities are the omission of the d—prado becomes praö—in any case the pronunciation of d, except as an initial, is very soft, similar to our th in thee, but less accentuated. The final d is also omitted by illiterate speakers; Usted is pronounced Uste, and even de becomes e. B and v are interchangeable. One used to see, on the one-horsed omnibus which in old times represented the locomotion of Madrid, Serbicio de omnibus quite as often as Servicio. Over the venta of El Espirito Santo on the road to Alcalá—now an outskirt of Madrid—was written, Aqui se veve bino y aguaardieñte—meaning, Aqui se bebe vino, etc. (Here may be drunk wine).

The two letters are, in fact, almost interchangeable in sound, but the educated Spaniard never, of course, makes the illiterate mistake of transposing them in writing. The sound of b is much more liquid than in English, and to pronounce Barcelona as a Castilian pronounces it, we should spell it Varcelona; the same with Córdoba, which to our ears sounds as if written Córdova, and so, in fact, we English spell it.