The people declare that in many places the leading industries have been completely ruined by the competition of persons in the employ of the Jesuits--for they call all the friars indiscriminately Jesuits, although they are perfectly aware of the distinctions between the various Orders. And they will point out to you one family after another who have been reduced to penury by the “good Fathers,” and will relate innumerable instances of the methods they believe to have been employed to this end. Perhaps the best way to explain these will be to give a literal translation of one or two of the stories I have heard from the people, which, told as they are with an absolute conviction of their truth, show what ground the working classes have for distrusting and detesting those who ought to set an example of virtue and self-abnegation. “A man I know saved 5,000 _duros_ [about £1,000], and he lent it all to the Jesuits for a building they were putting up, a building attached to the monastery, so that he looked upon it as a work for God. Some years went by, and my friend was growing old and wished to retire from his little business and live on his capital. So he asked the Jesuits to repay his loan. ‘Oh, no!’ they said, ‘do you not know, my son, that he who lends to God must expect no return? A loan to God is a gift for the salvation of thy soul.’ As I say, he was an old man, and he found himself ruined, without hope of earning more money. He left the good Fathers and went and cut his throat.” “Why is the old Marquesa de Fulano starving? I will tell you. When her father, the last Marquis, was dying, the Jesuits never left him for a moment, and at last they persuaded him that his soul was of more consequence than his daughter’s livelihood, and he made a will by which he left all his money to found a college for boys in ----. When he was dead his daughter discovered that all she had was the family land, and not a farthing of the capital her father had invested. Soon afterwards a famine came, and there was no rain for nine months. The Marquesa gave food to all the labourers on the estate, although there was no work for them, for she is a very charitable lady. She spent all the money she had, and then sold all her jewels and other valuables to buy them food. You see, she is a widow without family to advise and help her. Of course she was too proud to betray her poverty, but even if she had told her friends they could have done nothing, for many landowners were ruined that year. Now the estate is mortgaged to the last acre, and she has sold everything she has and is almost without food for herself. If you wish to hear about the Jesuits, ask the Marquesa de Fulano! And you will understand that all the people employed on the estate lost their livelihood too, for it is now long since she has been able to afford to have it cultivated.”