On Every Block You Will Find A Wandering Merchant Dolefully Announcing Paper And Phosphorus, - The One To Construct Cigarettes And The Other To Light Them.

The matches are little waxen tapers very neatly made and enclosed in pasteboard boxes, which are sold for a cent and contain about a hundred fosforos.

These boxes are ornamented with portraits of the popular favorites of the day, and afford a very fair test of the progress and decline of parties. The queen has disappeared from them except in caricature, and the chivalrous face of Castelar and the heavy Bourbon mouth of Don Carlos are oftener seen than any others. A Madrid smoker of average industry will use a box a day. They smoke more cigarettes than cigars, and in the ardor of conversation allow their fire to go out every minute. A young Austrian, who was watching a senorito light his wisp of paper for the fifth time, and mentally comparing it with the volcano volume and kern-deutsch integrity of purpose of the meerschaums of his native land, said to me: "What can you expect of a people who trifle in that way with the only work of their lives?"

It is this habit of constant smoking that makes the Madrilenos the thirstiest people in the world; so that, alternating with the cry of "Fire, lord-lings! Matches, chevaliers!" you hear continually the drone so tempting to parched throats, "Water! who wants water? freezing water! colder than snow!" This is the daily song of the Gallician who marches along in his irrigating mission, with his brown blouse, his short breeches, and pointed hat, like that Aladdin wears in the cheap editions; a little varied by the Valentian in his party-colored mantle and his tow trousers, showing the bronzed leg from the knee to the blue-bordered sandals.

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