that "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city; and their contentions are like the bars of a castle." We cannot fully estimate the vast amount of influence which, for many successive centuries, has been exerted by the Catholic clergy in Spain, in favor of civil and religious despotism, by means of confessions alone. The rule has been, that any one who did not present to his or her parish priest a certificate of having confessed, and received absolution as often as once a year, could not partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; and those who persisted in this neglect, first had their names posted up in the church as infamous contemners of religion, and then, if they did not yield, they were excommunicated. This last act not only deprived them of all their civil rights and privileges as citizens, and candidates for office and preferment, but they were also taught to believe, that it brought down upon them the vindictive wrath and blighting curse of Heaven, cutting them off from all blessings, and all hopes of favor, alike in this world and in that which is to come. Indeed, so tenacious are the clergy even now of this power, that when in company with two Catholic gentlemen at Gibraltar, a few weeks since, one of them informed me, that three of the priests connected with the church there, whenever a person came to them to confess, uniformly asked, as the first question, whether the penitent was a liberal or a Carlist, and if he admitted that he was a liberal, he was freely told that so long as he continued so, he could receive no absolution. Thus, though on British soil, and under British protection, these Catholics are told that the favor of Heaven depends on their political creed, as to the affairs of a foreign land. The statements above account for the fact, that at the present time there is so much party and political bickering in the Cortes, and elsewhere throughout Spain, when all the friends of liberty and of human rights should unite their efforts in rooting out, as they easily might do, the last vestige of civil and religious despotism from the land. Hence, too, the bitter and disgraceful contests between the Ins and the Outs, the attempts to imprison and otherwise punish the opponents of an existing ministry, and the frequent banishments which there are, merely for opinion's sake; so that at Mahon, and elsewhere, one meets not only with distinguished Carlists, but also with officers of high rank in the army, sent into exile, and placed under the watchful care of the police, for the crime of being "Exaltados," that is, strong liberals or radicals. Owing to the weakness caused by these unwise divisions, for more than a month, during the last summer, Madrid was under martial law, citizens were repeatedly shot down in the streets, and, as a member of the Cortes recently remarked, the influence of the Queen's government did not then extend further than one could see from the tower of one of the churches of the capital. On one occasion, too, 500 soldiers from the country, headed by a sergeant, took possession of the postoffice, at the Puerta del Sol, in the heart of the city; and, having kept it for a whole day, and shooting, if I remember right, the Captain-General of the Province and other individuals, they capitulated by special treaty in the evening, and were permitted to march out with the honors of war. I have often thought that there are certain peculiarities in the construction of houses on the continent of Europe, which a regard alike to the safety of human life, and the happiness which arises from the conscious security against the loss of property, the frightful alarms, and other more serious evils connected with the frequent and destructive fires which occur in our large cities, might make it well for us to imitate. Without entering into minute details, however, suffice it to say, that the walls of the houses, which are commonly of stone, covered with lime mortar, and painted, or more often whitewashed, are much thicker than ours, while the roofs are of earthen tile, or rarely slate, resting on a covering of thin slabs of stone, supported by wooden rafters, which are placed near each other. The flat tiles, or thin, large bricks, of which the floors are composed, rest on a support of wood and stone, like that of the roof; while the stairs, connecting the different stories, are of hewn stone, with a balustrade of iron. Thus, the only wood used in building a house is that already mentioned, together with the doors and window frames. To burn such houses, is, of course, almost impossible; and the security of life and property connected with them, presents a striking contrast to the condition, and the frequent fate of those huge tinder-boxes, which line the streets of large cities in the United States, and so often disturb, with appalling fear or serious danger, the midnight slumbers of thousands of their inhabitants, by the wide-spread and destructive bonfires for which they furnish such choice materials. In Europe, on the other hand, though the streets are much narrower, and the cities are far more compactly built, than with us, yet such a thing as a destructive fire is scarcely known. As an evidence of this, and also as an example of the utility and great security there is in the plan of mutual insurance, we may refer to the case of Madrid. By mutual insurance, I mean the placing in pledge, all the property which each one has insured, as liable to be levied upon, in order to make up losses by fire, sustained by any others of the same association. A society of this kind was organized in Madrid, in 1822, with two directors, a book-keeper or clerk, a treasurer, a secretary, and one who has charge of the books and papers. All these are elected annually by the society, and receive no compensation. Of the 8,000 houses in the city, 5,037 are insured, including various royal establishments, churches, the houses of the nobility, convents, and corporations of all classes. The society has its engineers, pumps, assistants, &c., for extinguishing fires. The amount of property entered, which stands pledged as security against losses, is $39,616,997. Each man, when his property is entered, pays two and a half cents on every hundred dollars of the amount for which it is insured; which tax goes to the fund kept on hand for the immediate payment of any losses sustained, as well as for the current expenses of the society. In ten years there have been four instalments paid, which have amounted, in all, to six cents and one fourth on each one hundred dollars of the capital; or little more than half a cent each year on every hundred dollars insured. Thus, by paying five or six cents a year, on every thousand dollars' worth of property insured, a man may have full and certain security against all losses by fire. I have been thus minute on this subject, on account of the losses recently sustained in New York, by the insolvency of the Fire Insurance companies; and also because one of our largest cities has been maturing a plan for making the city corporation itself responsible for all losses by fire, which might occur there; and at the same time securing, as city funds, such profits as might arise on a fair rate of general insurance. The plan of mutual insurance in the United States, as far as my own knowledge extends, has been mostly confined to towns or counties in the country, and hence it may be both interesting and useful to know, as in the case above, what have been its results as applied to a large and populous city. CHAPTER XII. ARANJUEZ, TOLEDO, AND CORDOVA. Ride to Toledo. 1 The Leave Madrid. -Diligences. -Aranjuez.-The Palace. - Gardens. HAD previous engagements admitted, many months might have been spent in Madrid, with both pleasure and profit to myself; not so much in visiting the curiosities of the city, for those I had mostly seen, as in studying the character and habits of a people, to me by far the most interesting of any in Europe. There is, perhaps, no nation on earth which has so many and so strongly marked provincial peculiarities of dress, language, manners, and personal appearance, as the Spanish; and no capital, where all the varied traits of national character and customs are so fully and strikingly represented, as in Madrid. When the time of departure came, however, bidding my friends a hurried farewell, and chasing my passport through the various offices, where a jealous and warlike government required that it should be examined and signed, I took a seat in the diligence, early one morning, for the town and palace of Aranjuez. The carriages on this, and most of the large roads in Spain, are far different from the crazy, amphibious old vehicle in which I travelled from Badajoz to Madrid. They are exact copies of the French diligences, with three distinct compartments, besides the seat for the driver, in front. Directly in the rear of the driver, is a seat for three, who face forwards, and have sliding windows of glass in front and on each side of them. As those who Occupy this place have a better view of the country than those further aft, and in dry weather are less exposed to dust, a higher price is charged for their seats. Next to this comes the interior, or middle division, with seats for six persons, half of whom ride backwards, and the only places for looking out, are on each side. Last of all is the third apartment, which has also seats for six, and is entered by a door in the rear, like an omnibus. These last seats commonly cost about two-thirds, and those of the interior, three-fourths or more, of what is charged for those in front. I greatly prefer the middle seats, however, as in the winter they are more defended from cold than the others; and they are also usually occupied by the more substantial and intelligent class of travellers; while in the rear are the poorer class of people and soldiers, not always clad in the neatest manner, and from whom but little can be learned. In front, on the other hand, one frequently meets with those who are disposed to be exclusive, and have much more gentility than brains. These diligences are drawn by eight or ten mules, sometimes harnessed three or four abreast; and besides these, there are often two or three horses in front, as leaders. In one case, in the South of Spain, where the road was very bad, we were drawn by seventeen horses and mules, mounted by six or eight half-crazy post boys, who, with their shouting, cracking their whips, and the noisy dashing of the animals and vehicle through the mud, made a real moving Bedlam. The first six leagues after leaving Madrid, we were rapidly hurried over a straight, level road, with but little around to interest us. Then we began to descend into the beautiful and romantic vale of Aranjuez, the chosen abode of royalty, where the waters of the Golden Tagus at once soothe the ear by their delighful murmurs, and give to a thousand trees and plants a rank, luxuriant, and glowing fertility, worthy of an earthly paradise, and scarce surpassed in native richness and splendor by the highest conceptions of poetry or fiction. The palace of Aranjuez, the extensive and beautiful gardens, and the long avenues of lofty trees around it, occupy the centre of a valley or basin, enclosed by gentle hills; and both nature and art have conspired to make it one of the most delightful summer residences in the world. It was selected, and the palace was commenced, by that brilliant, but singular monarch, the Emperor Charles the Fifth; the traces of whose taste and power, and wide-spread and splendid conquests, are more often met with in Europe and the North of Africa, than those of any other individual who has ever lived, if we except, perhaps, Napoleon Bonaparte. |