Various as are the objects worth observing in Spain, many of which are
to be seen there only, it may be as well to mention what is _not_ to be
seen, for there is no such loss of time as finding this out oneself,
after weary chace and wasted hour. Those who expect to meet with
well-garnished arsenals, libraries, restaurants, charitable or literary
institutions, canals, railroads, tunnels, suspension-bridges,
steam-engines, omnibuses, manufactories, polytechnic galleries, pale-ale
breweries, and similar appliances and appurtenances of a high state of
political, social, and commercial civilization, had better stay at home.
In Spain there are no turnpike-trust meetings, no quarter-sessions, no
courts of _justice_, according to the real meaning of that word, no
treadmills, no boards of guardians, no chairmen, directors,
masters-extraordinary of the court of chancery, no assistant poor-law
commissioners. There are no anti-tobacco-teetotal-temperance-meetings,
no auxiliary-missionary-propagating societies, nothing in the blanket
and lying-in asylum line, nothing, in short, worth a revising-barrister
of three years’ standing’s notice, unless he be partial to the study of
the laws of bankruptcy. Spain is no country for the political economist,
beyond affording an example of the decline of the wealth of nations, and
offering a wide topic on errors to be avoided, as well as for
experimental theories, plans of reform and amelioration. In Spain,
Nature reigns; she has there lavished her utmost prodigality of soil and
climate, which Spaniards have for the last four centuries been
endeavouring to counteract by a culpable neglect of agricultural
speeches and dinners, and a non-distribution of prizes for the biggest
boars, asses, and labourers with largest families.
[Sidenote: WHAT TO OBSERVE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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