more unceremonious manner, other pressing claims upon the treasury. The budget itself is a truly curious document. The customs' revenue is swollen by the supposed profits of the new tariff; the expenses of the war department are boldly set down at a reduction which must accord rather with Mr Murillo's wish than with his expectations. On the debit side figure also the claims of the public creditor, for much less than is due, certainly, but for far more than will be paid. The result of the estimate is, as usual, most satisfactory, or would be so, at least, if there were the slightest chance of its justification by the actual receipts and expenditure of the year for which it is made. To return, however, to the improvements and public works announced by the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. We certainly find in the budget a sum of about three hundred thousand pounds--something more than half the involuntary contribution wrung from the unhappy _employés_ and pensioners--set down to roads, railways, and canals. Is this magnificent sum to complete the valuable water-communications and the network of roads promised to expectant Spain? Hardly, even if applied as appropriated, which little enough of it ever will be. As to railways, they are certainly _begun_, but that is as much as can be said. There is a thirty mile railroad open between Barcelona and Mataro, upon which accidents seem of pretty frequent occurrence; and that said, we have said all. A good many others have been planned, involving the most magnificent projects of tunnels through chains of mountains, viaducts over great rivers, cuttings through dense forests, and the like; and at some of these there may be attempts at work, enough to justify demands for funds; but their termination is altogether another matter in a country where, according to its national proverb, things are begun late, and never finished. Doubtless it is a satisfaction to Spanish pride, when it sees other European countries veined with iron tracks, to be able to talk of Spanish railroads as things that are not only projected, but begun. A great country like Spain must not lag behind in the race of improvement, and its natives would deem themselves humiliated if they did not attempt to have what England, France, and Germany enjoy. Nothing can escape these ambitious hidalgos. They have heard of the electric telegraph, and it is easy to discern, by newspaper paragraphs, that they are agog for the novelty, although the country has just been put to considerable expense by the completion and improvement of the aërial semaphores. These work very well, the _Diario Mercantil_ of Valencia told us the other day; but fogs are a great nuisance, the electric plan is much better and surer, and a German company has offered to lay any length of wires at the rate of two hundred pounds sterling per league; and the _Diario_ trusts the government will keep the matter in view, and adopt the new system, if