and hampered after Señor Maura took office. With the return of a Liberal Ministry to power it is hoped that the work will be once more effectively taken up. * * * * * Since the above chapter was written a Report on the present condition of education, addressed to the Cortes, has been prepared by the Minister of Education, and summarised in the Spanish Press. The following quotations from this summary throw a lurid light on the actual state of affairs. “More than 10,000 schools are on hired premises, and many of these are absolutely destitute of hygienic conditions. There are schools mixed up with hospitals, with cemeteries, with slaughterhouses, with stables. One school forms the entrance to a cemetery, and the corpses are placed on the master’s table while the last responses are being said. There is a school into which the children cannot enter until the animals have been taken out and sent to pasture. Some are so small that as soon as the warm weather begins the boys faint for want of air and ventilation. One school is a manure-heap in process of fermentation, (_sic_) and one of the local authorities has said that in this way the children are warmer in the winter. One school in Cataluña adjoins the prison. Another, in Andalusia, is turned into an enclosure for the bulls when there is a bullfight in the town. “The school premises are bad, but most of the Town Councils do not pay the rent, for which reason the proprietors refuse to let their houses. Ninety per cent. of the buildings in which the schools are held are the worst dwellings in the town. “In Lucena the salary of a mistress is held back because she guaranteed the school rent. The Municipality did not pay it, the school was going to be evicted and the teaching to be interrupted, and that mistress, in order to prevent this, pledged her miserable pay.” Comment is needless: the facts, vouched for by the Minister of Education, speak for themselves. TAXATION [Illustration: SAFFRON PICKERS SORTING THEIR CROP. To face page 285.] CHAPTER XV TAXATION Among the sources of the national revenue of Spain there are several which more especially affect the poorer portion of the community, or, by hampering trade and manufactures, put obstacles in the way of the national prosperity. Among these may be especially mentioned the Customs duties, the tax on trades, business, and professions (_contribucion industrial_) the _octroi_, or _consumo_, the creation and sale of monopolies, and the national lottery. The total taxation of the country is absolutely crushing, and makes Spain one of the dearest places of residence in Europe.