I Once Asked A Very Intelligent English Contractor Why He Used No
Wheelbarrows In His Work.
He had some hundreds of stalwart navvies
employed carrying dirt in small wicker baskets to an embankment.
He said
the men would not use them. Some said it broke their backs. Others
discovered a capital way of amusing themselves by putting the barrow on
their heads and whirling the wheel as rapidly as possible with their
hands. This was a game which never grew stale. The contractor gave up in
despair, and went back to the baskets. But it is in the official regions
that tradition is most powerful. In the budget of 1870 there was a
curious chapter called "Charges of Justice." This consisted of a
collection of articles appropriating large sums of money for the payment
of feudal taxes to the great aristocracy of the kingdom as a
compensation for long extinct seigniories. The Duke of Rivas got
thirteen hundred dollars for carrying the mail to Victoria. The Duke of
San Carlos draws ten thousand dollars for carrying the royal
correspondence to the Indies. Of course this service ceased to belong to
these families some centuries ago, but the salary is still paid. The
Duke of Almodovar is well paid for supplying the baton of office to
the Alguazil of Cordova. The Duke of Osuna - one of the greatest grandees
of the kingdom, a gentleman who has the right to wear seventeen hats in
the presence of the Queen - receives fifty thousand dollars a year for
imaginary feudal services. The Count of Altamira, who, as his name
indicates, is a gentleman of high views, receives as a salve for the
suppression of his fief thirty thousand dollars a year. In consideration
of this sum he surrenders, while it is punctually paid, the privilege of
hanging his neighbors.
When the budget was discussed, a Republican member gently criticised
this chapter; but his amendment for an investigation of these charges
was indignantly rejected. He was accused of a shocking want of
Espanolismo. He was thought to have no feeling in his heart for the
glories of Spain. The respectability of the Chamber could find but one
word injurious enough to express their contempt for so shameless a
proposition; they said it was little better than socialism. The
"charges" were all voted. Spain, tottering on the perilous verge of
bankruptcy, her schoolmasters not paid for months, her sinking fund
plundered, her credit gone out of sight, borrowing every cent she spends
at thirty per cent., is proud of the privilege of paying into the hands
of her richest and most useless class this gratuity of twelve million
reals simply because they are descended from the robber chiefs of the
darker ages. There is a curious little comedy played by the family of
Medina Celi at every new coronation of a king of Spain. The duke claims
to be the rightful heir to the throne. He is descended from Prince
Ferdinand, who, dying before his father, Don Alonso X., left his babies
exposed to the cruel kindness of their uncle Sancho, who, to save them
the troubles of the throne, assumed it himself and transmitted it to his
children, - all this some half dozen centuries ago.
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