“While we have that lot here we cannot live. The alms which ought to be given to the poor are given to them. I don’t believe they give to the poor the bread which they beg from the ovens. I believe they use it all to make _alforjillas_ and _piñonates_ for sale.[8] They cannot make them without bread. The Jesuits do not make them themselves. All the monasteries keep _amas de gobierno_[9] to cook and wash and mend and do everything required. They are quite independent, answerable to nobody. They eat us up as if they were ants. They let no one live, meddling with everything that doesn’t concern them. They tack themselves to a lady, an acquaintance, and she has linen to launder, and they order her to send it at once to be washed in one of the [religious] houses where poor unfortunates are taken in. Many of them are the children of the friars themselves and of the priests. There is a family in ---- Street whom they call ‘Curitas,’ five brothers and sisters, all children of one parish priest [_cura_]. Their ‘Uncle Cura,’ as they called him, brought them up and educated them and left them all he possessed. They were all the children of one mother; it was the same as if the priest had been married to her. He lived with her and maintained her all his life. But that is a great sin for the priest! They say that in your country the priests are allowed to marry. If it were the same here the Church would be purged of many sins, for all the priests live with women. If they are faithful to one woman I do not see what sin there is in it. It is natural. But it is more usual for them to have many women. I know that one old priest had at least ten or twelve children in ---- [a low quarter of the town], all by different women. He brought them all up, and gave them every year enough for their food. He was very rich. They called him ‘the Prior.’ The mothers said to the children: ‘Run along; the Prior will give thee money to buy food.’ I know this because my father used to work for him. The priest often said to him: ‘Look, what pretty children mine are!’ He was not in the least ashamed of owning that they were his.” And here is another statement made by the father of growing lads whom he was educating as best he could to try for appointments in the Civil Service.