[5] The following figures will give an idea of the contents of the newspapers. I do not allude to the Bulletin Official, which is reserved for official announcements, and contains little else of any importance. The number lying before me of the Comercio (Nov. 29, 1858), a paper that appears six times a week, consists of four pages, the printed portion in each of which is 11 inches by 17; the whole, therefore, contains 748 square inches of printed matter. They are distributed as follows:—
Title, 27½ sq. in.; an essay on the population of Spain, taken from a book, 102½ sq. in.; under the heading “News from Europe,” an article, quoted from the Annals of La Caridad, upon the increase of charity and Catholic instruction in France, 40½ sq. in.; Part I, of a treatise on Art and its Origin (a series of truisms), 70 sq. in.; extracts from the official sheet, 20½ sq. in.; a few ancient anecdotes, 59 sq. in. Religious portion (this is divided into two parts—official and unofficial). The first contains the saints for the different days of the year, etc., and the announcements of religious festivals; the second advertises a forthcoming splendid procession, and contains the first half of a sermon preached three years before, on the anniversary of the same festival, 99 sq. in., besides an instalment of an old novel, 154, and advertisements, 175 sq. in.; total, 748 sq. in. In the last years, however, the newspapers sometimes have contained serious essays, but of late these appear extremely seldom.
[6] Vide Pigafetta.
[7] Cock-fighting is not alluded to in the “Ordinances of good government,” collected by Hurtado Corcuera in the middle of the seventeenth century. In 1779 cock-fights were taxed for the first time. In 1781 the government farmed the right of entrance to the galleras (derived from gallo, rooster) for the yearly sum of $14,798. In 1863 the receipts from the galleras figured in the budget for $106,000.
A special decree of 100 clauses was issued in Madrid on the 21st of March, 1861, for the regulation of cock-fights. The 1st clause declares that since cock-fights are a source of revenue to the State, they shall only take place in arenas licensed by the Government. The 6th restricts them to Sundays and holidays; the 7th, from the conclusion of high mass to sunset. The 12th forbids more than $50 to be staked on one contest. The 38th decrees that each cock shall carry but one weapon, and that on its left spur. By the 52nd the fight is to be considered over when one or both cocks are dead, or when one shows the white feather. In the London Daily News of the 30th June, 1869, I find it reported that five men were sentenced at Leeds to two months’ hard labor for setting six cocks to fight one another with iron spurs. From this it appears that this once favorite spectacle is no longer permitted in England.
[8] The raw materials of these adventures were supplied by a French planter, M. de la Gironiere, but their literary parent is avowedly Alexander Dumas.
[9] Botanical gardens do not seem to prosper under Spanish auspices. Chamisso complains that, in his day, there were no traces left of the botanical gardens founded at Cavite by the learned Cuellar. The gardens at Madrid, even, are in a sorry plight; its hothouses are almost empty. The grounds which were laid out at great expense by a wealthy and patriotic Spaniard at Orotava (Teneriffe), a spot whose climate has been of the greatest service to invalids, are rapidly going to decay. Every year a considerable sum is appropriated to it in the national budget, but scarcely a fraction of it ever reaches Orotava. When I was there in 1867, the gardener had received no salary for twenty-two months, all the workmen were dismissed, and even the indispensable water supply had been cut off.
[10] For a proof of this vide the Berlin Ethnographical Museum, Nos. 294–295.