straight on the blade, and calculated either for the cut or thrust. The term _Barato_ strictly means the present which is given to waiters who bring a new pack of cards. The origin is Arabic, _Baara_, “a _voluntary_ gift;” in the corruption of the _Baratero_, it has become an involuntary one. Our legal term _Barratry_ is derived from the mediæval _Barrateria_, which signified cheating or foul play. Cervantes well knew that _Baratar_ in old Spanish meant to exchange unfairly, to thimble-rig, to sell anything under its real value, and therefore gave the name of _Barrateria_ to Sancho’s sham government. The _Baratero_ is quite a thing of Spain, where personal prowess is cherished, and there is one in every regiment, ship, prison, and even among galley-slaves. [Sidenote: FIGARO’S SHOP.] The interior of the barber’s shop is equally a _cosa de España_. Her neighbour may boast to lead Europe in hair-dressing and clipping poodles, but Figaro snaps his fingers at her civilization, and no cat’s ears and tail can be closer shaved than his one’s are. The walls of his operating room are neatly lathered with white-wash; on a peg hangs his brown cloak and conical hat; his shelves are decorated with clay-painted figures of picturesque rascals, arrayed in all their Andalucian toggery--bandits, bull-fighters, and smugglers, who, especially the latter, are more universally popular than all or any long-tail-coated chancellors of exchequers. The walls are enlivened with rude prints of fandango dancings, miracles, and bull-fights, in which the Spanish vulgar delight, as ours do in racing and ring notabilities. Nor is a portrait of his _querida_, his black-eyed sweetheart, often wanting. Near these, for religion mixes itself with everything of Spain, are images of the Virgin, patron saints, with stoups for holy water, and little cups in which lighted wicks burn floating on green oil; and formerly no barber prepared for an operation, whether on veins, teeth, or beards, without first making the sign of a cross. Thus hallowed, his implements of art are duly arranged in order; his glass, soap, towels, and leather strap, and guitar, which indeed, with the razor, constitutes the genus barber. “These worthies,” said Don Quixote, “are all either _guitarristas o copleros_; they are either makers of couplets, or accompany other songsters with catgut.” Hence Quevedo, in his ‘Pigsties of Satan,’ punishes unrighteous Figaros, by hanging up near them a guitar, which tantalizes their touch, and moves away when they wish to take it down. [Sidenote: SPANISH SHAVING.]