suppression of his fief thirty thousand dollars a year. In consideration of this sum he surrenders, while it is punctually paid, the privilege of hanging his neighbors. When the budget was discussed, a Republican member gently criticised this chapter; but his amendment for an investigation of these charges was indignantly rejected. He was accused of a shocking want of Espanolismo. He was thought to have no feeling in his heart for the glories of Spain. The respectability of the Chamber could find but one word injurious enough to express their contempt for so shameless a proposition; they said it was little better than socialism. The "charges" were all voted. Spain, tottering on the perilous verge of bankruptcy, her schoolmasters not paid for months, her sinking fund plundered, her credit gone out of sight, borrowing every cent she spends at thirty per cent., is proud of the privilege of paying into the hands of her richest and most useless class this gratuity of twelve million reals simply because they are descended from the robber chiefs of the darker ages. There is a curious little comedy played by the family of Medina Celi at every new coronation of a king of Spain. The duke claims to be the rightful heir to the throne. He is descended from Prince Ferdinand, who, dying before his father, Don Alonso X., left his babies exposed to the cruel kindness of their uncle Sancho, who, to save them the troubles of the throne, assumed it himself and transmitted it to his children,--all this some half dozen centuries ago. At every coronation the duke formally protests; an athletic and sinister-looking court headsman comes down to his palace in the Carrera San Geronimo, and by threats of immediate decapitation induces the duke to sign a paper abdicating his rights to the throne of all the Spains. The duke eats the Bourbon leek with inward profanity, and feels that he has done a most clever and proper thing. This performance is apparently his only object and mission in life. This one sacrifice to tradition is what he is born for. The most important part of a Spaniard's signature is the _rubrica_ or flourish with which it closes. The monarch's hand is set to public acts exclusively by this _parafe._ This evidently dates from the time when none but priests could write. In Madrid the mule-teams are driven tandem through the wide streets, because this was necessary in the ages when the streets were narrow.