He acquires the European vices without the virtues; loses his native modesty and self-respect, and develops too often into a contemptible pica-pleito, or pettifogger, instead of becoming an honest farmer. The more educated Tagals are fond of litigation, and with the assistance of native or half-caste lawyers will carry on the most frivolous and vexatious lawsuit with every artifice that cunning and utter unscrupulousness can suggest. The corrupt nature of the Spanish courts is a mainstay to such people. Although they may be possessed of ample means litigants often obtain from the court permission to sue a foreigner in forma pauperis. They are unscrupulous about evidence, and many will perjure themselves or bring false witnesses without shame. It is said that blank stamped paper of any year can be obtained for a sufficient price for the purpose of forging documents relating to the sale of land; as there are people who regularly keep it for this purpose. The feeling of envy is strong within them, and any Spaniard or foreigner who appears to be succeeding in an industrial enterprise in the provinces, such as planting or mining, is sure, sooner or later, to be attacked by the pettifoggers or their men of straw, and he will be bled heavily when he comes before the courts, and perhaps have to go to the Court of Appeal or even to the Tribunal Suprémo in Madrid before he can obtain a verdict in his favour. The credulity of the Tagal is remarkable; he has on occasion given way to outbursts of ferocity, involving death and destruction to numbers of innocent people. In 1820, during an epidemic of cholera, he was led to believe that this strange sickness had been produced by the foreigners, who had poisoned the water. An indiscriminate massacre of foreigners was the consequence of this calumny, and but few escaped. The authorities, always prompt to repress uprisings against the Government, allowed time for the foreigners to be massacred before they interfered. It is not easy to say how many English, French, or Americans met their deaths at the hands of the populace, for such details are never allowed to be published. I may say, however, that one should not be too hard on the Tagals for this crime, since at a much later date a massacre of priests occurred in Madrid, on account of a similar belief. It was started because a lad, the servant of a priest, was seen to throw some white powder into the Fuente Castellana. I have not at hand the details of this massacre, but the friars were slaughtered like pigs.