1831.] Affairs in General. 441 



crowd, at the risk of suffocation ' pour vous dine,' ' bon soir,' or ' vous souhaiter 

 la bonne nuit' such is usually the utmost one can expect from any Neapolitan. 

 Occasionally some foreigner or two distinguish themselves from the multitude 

 by keeping up some humdrum character or other, but it is all bad. The King 

 walked about in a black domino, accompanied by one courtier only. He did 

 Lady B. the honour of addressing her at least six times during the evening ; 

 his remarks were common-place, but extremely polite and condescending. 

 He was amiable with all the English ladies, with whom he has the character 

 of being very shy ! Every body knew the Domino, as there was constantly a 

 sentinel within a yard of him, apparently by chance." 



The Spaniards are rising again. The last news from the south give 

 us strong reason for fearing that Ferdinand the Beloved will be sent to 

 embroider petticoats again for the Virgin. She has owed him something 

 for his former needlework, and we hope that her celestial presence will 

 take advantage of the coming opportunity, and for every additional spe- 

 cimen of his skill give him a new step in canonization. If Cadiz is in 

 possession of the insurgents, we should not promise this ridiculous king 

 a six months' lease of his throne. Not that there can be any serious 

 aversion felt for the man himself, who seems to be of the very calibre 

 for a petticoat-maker ; but for the abuses of his government, for the sys- 

 tems of peculation, suspicion, and public misery, which makes the cities 

 of Spain dungeons, and the villages of Spain dens of thieves. From all 

 the accounts of travellers, there is more safety in travelling in Arabia 

 than on a Spanish high-road. If this go on, we shall see Madrid as 

 inaccessible as Timbuctoo, and Africa teaching manners to the Dons. 

 Yet what is the source of the phenomenon ? In one word, monkery. 

 " The Curse of a Country. Who can wonder at the degraded state of 

 Popish Spain, though blest with a climate the most genial, and a soil the most 

 productive, when he considers the multitude of sacred drones that infest it ? 

 In Spain it is calculated that there are no less than two hundred thousand 

 monks of one description or other, whose only labour in the vineyard is 

 gathering the grapes. Another Peninsular war will thin their ranks marvel* 

 lously." 



No ministry ever had a harder card to play than the Grey Cabinet, 

 for they have protested and promised about retrenchment until they 

 have compelled the people to believe them, and now they must go 

 through with it. The first point which will be battled with them is the 

 " retiring pensions" to the Bankrupt Commissioners. On this " The 

 Legal Observer/' a useful and ably-conducted work, observes : 



" We have just obtained a copy of the new bill for the administration of 

 Bankruptcy. A compensation clause is inserted, as we expected. It provides, 

 that no commissioner holding ' any other public place or situation/ shall be 

 entitled to it ; but that all other commissioners who have held office for ten 

 years shall have 200 per annum ; and those who have held office for a less 

 period, 150 per annum. It is said that this compensation is not a necessary 

 part of the proposed change, and if it be strongly opposed, it will not be 

 pressed." 



A contemporary observes : 



" If it be strongly opposed ? And can there be any doubt about the matter? 

 Are our ears to be deafened with an outcry against the existing pensions on 

 the civil list, and are new pensions to be created for the lists of Bankrupt 

 Commissioners ? They are functionaries who have effected their own anni- 

 hilation by the odium which their practices have disseminated, and is the 

 country to be insulted by a proposal to give them compensation ?" 

 M.M. New Series. VOL. XL No. 64, 3 L 



