The Liberal element in Bilbao is strong, and naturally great indignation was created among the working classes by these insults to their politics and religion. Down to that date there had been no lay school in the city, but now it was announced that one would be opened immediately. The noteworthy feature of this meeting was a denunciation of the Conservatives by a Carlist speaker, who included them with the Liberals in his fulmination against the “cowardly incendiaries of Barcelona,” urging the Catholics “to have done with patient endurance and enter upon the period of action.” The result of this was that the Conservatives of Bilbao refrained from sending any representative of their party to the banquet given after the meeting to the orators who had spoken at it, thus definitely dissociating themselves from the policy of the Clericalists in their city. I have made special mention of two of these demonstrations against the lay schools, one because of its magnitude and importance, the other because of its results. To chronicle more of them would be tedious and unnecessary. The campaign against these schools is unceasing: the defence is by no means equal in vigour to the attack, and is limited to articles now and then in the _Pais_ and an occasional meeting in their support. Whether this apparent indifference is due to weakness on the part of those who uphold the lay schools, or to a feeling of strength which can afford to despise the fulminations of opponents, I am unable to say. It is a quarrel, as the satirist says, “_Ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum._” THE ARMY, PAST AND PRESENT [Illustration: A CONSCRIPT. [To face page 199.] CHAPTER X THE ARMY, PAST AND PRESENT It is allowed that great abuses were committed by those in power during the long war in Cuba, which ended with the struggle in the United States and the final expulsion of Spain from the last of her American colonies, and it is common knowledge that the munitions, provisions, and all the supplies of the Army fell lamentably short of what was required. It may be imagined, therefore, that the survivors of these long years of warfare brought back stories of experiences little calculated to inspire their friends with confidence in the governing classes, who were responsible for such shortcomings. Fully to appreciate the difference between the sentiment of the Army to-day and what it was so late as 1901, when the defeated troops from the lost colonies came home with their tale of suffering, it is necessary to show what convictions have had to be changed and what prejudices overcome by Don Alfonso before he could win the place which he now holds in the affections of his soldiers.