In certain matters there is extreme sensitiveness to any suspicion of dishonesty, but it is not clear that any conscious religious principle underlies this feeling. It seems rather an instinct of self-protection; for when we learn that it is a common practice for employers to examine their servants’ boxes when they leave a situation, even although their good conduct has not been called into question, we see that the friendliest relations between master and man do not necessarily imply confidence in the honour of the latter. The result of assuming evil where there is none is to encourage its genesis. I have heard working-class Spaniards say bitterly: “The rich people believe that we are all thieves, so what is the use of being honest? Yet most of us are honest, even though we go hungry for being so.” Stealing is considered by the poor as a sin, but I am inclined to think that the degree of sinfulness depends in the criminal’s eyes upon the nature of the theft. Thus, while no respectable peasant will steal money or clothes, servants have no hesitation in appropriating sweets and wine, to which, indeed, they think they have a right, very possibly dating from the time when domesticated aliens were fed on the leavings of their masters’ table. It would be difficult to convince them that to drink their employer’s wine without permission is just as immoral as to steal his cash. The instruction given by the Church on these points is hardly ambiguous, if one may judge by a parish leaflet in my possession. It contains the following questions of conscience resolved under the head of “Consultations.” “May a servant give to the poor the food which remains over, without asking permission of her master?” “She may do so when her master does not make use of or dispose of it.” “And may she give it to her poor relations?” “Without any doubt; but _it is better_ to consult her master” (italics mine). Such moral teaching as this would quite account for the conduct of a pious cook once in my employ, who fed her entire family for some time at my expense. She, it is perhaps needless to say, did not “consult her master” on the point. She may have consulted her priest, for all I know, and if she did was probably told that it was a meritorious act to rob a heretic.