[20] The purpose of these Spanish city laws was in its essence unimpeachable; namely, to guard the intensely ignorant Christian populace--the same which fugitive Moriscos of the kingdom of Valencia had readily prevailed upon to barter tons of brass and pewter trash for sterling gold and silver coin--from being imposed upon by manufacturers and merchants. But the power of discriminating between a genuine or well-made object and a piece of counterfeit or worthless rubbish is, among all peoples, better sought for and developed by experience than by legislation; and there was something noxiously prosaic in a code of city ordinances which forbade the craftsman to prepare his own design, or choose his own material, or establish his own prices. How violently, or at least how primitively, hostile to the sense of art must not have been these Christian sons of Spain to need--or think they needed--so impertinent and tyrannous a system of protection! Makers of the leather-covered chests are ordered to use the hides of horses, mares, or mules, and not the hides of oxen, cows, or calves, because, if covered with this latter, "the chests grow moth-eaten and are destroyed much sooner." The craftsman who transgresses this command must lose the faulty piece of furniture, and pay four hundred _maravedis_, while under a further penalty of two hundred _maravedis_ the hinges must be fixed inside the chest, and not to its exterior. [Illustration: X MOORISH DOOR, DETAIL OF CARVING (_Hall of the Two Sisters, Alhambra, Granada_)] I have omitted hitherto all mention of the furnishing of humbler Spanish houses in the olden time. The following passage from the Ordinances of Granada shows us, referring to an inn, an unpretentious lodging of about four hundred years ago:-- "_Item._ If the innkeeper have a parlour or alcove that fastens with a lock, and therein a bed of the better class, with hangings round about it, and a canopy above, and on the bed a counterpane, friezed blanket, and pillows; also a bench with its strip of carpet or striped benchcloth, a table with its service of tablecloths and all that be needful, besides a lamp of brass or ware, all of the best that he is able to provide--for such a bed and room he may demand twelve _maravedis_ each day; whether the room be taken by one guest, or two, or more."[21] [21] _Ordenanza de Mesoneros_, titulo 54.