Another comic weekly published at Madrid is called _Gil Blas, Periódico Satírico_. This is by far the least bad of the comic papers recently attempted in Spain. Many of its subjects are drawn from the politics of the period, and some of them appear to be very happily treated. The sorry adventures of Louis Napoleon and his son in the war between France and Prussia are presented with much comic effect. Queen Isabel and her hopeful boy figure also in many sketches, which were doubtless amusing to the people of Madrid when they appeared. The Duc de Montpensier and other possible candidates for the throne are portrayed in situations and circumstances not to be fully understood at this distance from the time and scene. The Spanish caricatures given in this chapter, whatever the reader may think of them, were selected from about a thousand specimens; and if they are not the very best of the thousand, they are at least the best of those which can be appreciated by us. Cuba had its comic periodical during the brief ascendency of liberal ideas in 1874. A Cuban letter of that year chronicles its suspension: "The comic weekly newspaper, _Juan Palonio_, has met its death-blow by an order of suspension for a month, and a strong hint to the director, Don Juan Ortega, that a trip to the Peninsula would be of benefit to his health. The immediate cause of this order was a cartoon, representing the arms of the captain-general wielding a broom, marked 'extraordinary powers,' and sweeping away ignorance, the insurrection, etc. There was nothing, in fact, to take umbrage at; but the cartoon served as a pretext to kill the paper, which was rather too republican in tone. The Government censor was removed from his position for the same reason, and a new one appointed." In those countries long debauched by superstition, comic art has little chance; for if tyranny does not kill it, a dissolute public degrades it into a means of pollution. CHAPTER XXII. ITALIAN CARICATURE. As soon as comic art in Italy is mentioned, we think of Pasquino, the merry Roman tailor, whose name has enriched all the languages of Europe with an effective word. Many men whose names have been put to a similar use have, notwithstanding, been completely forgotten; but Pasquino, after having been the occasion of pasquinades for four centuries, is still freshly remembered, and travelers tell his story over again to their readers.