A ci-devant colonel, just arrived in Madrid, related the fact to me one evening, on which, as chance would have it, I found him at supper. Immediately on my entering the room he commenced complaining of the lack of silver articles of necessity for the table, and accounted for it in the following manner. He had recently arrived with his family from a provincial town, in which he had filled a government situation. Shortly before his departure he had invited all his friends to a leave-taking repast; and after the departure of his guests nearly two dozen articles of plate were missing. "In packing up," I observed, "no doubt some dishonest domestic--" "No, no," he interrupted, "they were all pocketed by my guests." That the man in office should have conciliated the attachment of all his acquaintances to such a degree, as that all should conceive simultaneously the idea of preserving a _souvenir_ of his person, and that in so delicate and unostentatious a manner,--was not possible. As, therefore, I still retained my impression of the honesty of the lower classes, and as the sufferer appeared to treat the occurrence as one by no means extraordinary, I came to the conclusion, that--either Spanish integrity, unlike that of other nations, must rise in an inverse ratio to men's fortunes and stations; or that the author of the anecdote had been tempted, by the desire of masking the (perhaps unavoidable) deficiencies in his supper service, to have recourse to his inventive talent, at the expense of his absent friends' reputation. I believe it must be allowed that with respect to the disregard of the rights of proprietorship, of which the lower classes are accused, there are sufficient instances on record to counterbalance, in some degree, my personal experience; but there is this to be urged in favour of that class of culprits, where such are met with, that their mode of operation is far more manly and courageous than that of the depredators of some other climes--by which means they obtain also the full reputation of their misdeeds. There may scarcely be said to be anything mean or degrading in their manner of thieving: and their system is itself a proof that they see no sin in it. They take to the mountains, and declare open war against those whom they consider the unjust monopolizers of wealth.