illicit pursuits, though they should so decline in profit as only to yield him bread, garlic, and tobacco. You must find him occupation profitable and to his taste before you can reclaim him; for he will not dig, and would rather rob than beg. Whenever such import-duties are adopted in Spain as will really stop smuggling, there will undoubtedly be a great increase of crimes against property, innumerable bands of robbers will spring up, and probably there will also be risings under political banners. The present moment is by no means unpropitious for the experiment. The government of Spain has perhaps the power, but we doubt that it has the will. We have shown cause for believing that the recent change will prove delusive, and of small benefit. If we are mistaken--and it is very difficult to decide beforehand of the result of Spanish measures--we shall sincerely rejoice. [13] At the first hint of a project of reform in the tariff, the cry in Spain, and especially in Catalonia, has invariably been,--"Protection for our manufactures!" So loud was the clamour, that it might have been imagined millions of mouths were dependent for bread on the fabrication of Spanish calicoes. Now, the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ estimates the total number of hands employed in these much-vaunted cotton manufactures at thirty-one thousand; and even this number we are induced to believe considerably over-estimated, from minute and interesting information on the subject we have recently obtained from an intelligent Spaniard, long resident in Catalonia. And amongst the manufacturers are a number of Frenchmen, and other foreigners; for, in fact, Spaniards have little taste for mechanical occupations, and have too fine a climate not to love the open air. So the "protection," so violently insisted upon, is for this handful of operatives, who make bad calicoes at exorbitant prices; or rather, if the truth be told, it is for the master-manufacturers, most of whom are also master-smugglers.