Pernales 1 8 1 



Should any of these sleek-faces read our book, they may he 

 gratified to learn that no other civilised country produces parasites 

 such as they. 



Not a foreign student of the problems of social life in Spain 

 with its conditions but has been brought to a full stop in the 

 effort to diagnose or describe the secret sinister influence of 

 Caciquismo. Our Spanish friends — detesting and despising the 

 thing equally with ourselves — tell us that no foreigner has yet 

 realised either its nature or its scope. Certainly we make no 

 such joretensiou, nor attempt to describe the thing itself — a thing- 

 scarce intelligible to Saxon lines of thought, a baneful influence 

 devised to retard the advance of modern ideas of freedom and 

 justice, to benumlj all moral yearnings for truth and honesty in 

 public afi'airs and civil government. Caciquismo may roughly l)e 

 defined as the negation and antithesis of patriotism ; it sets the 

 personal influence of one before the interest of all, sacrificing 

 whole districts to the caprice of some soul-warped tyrant witli 

 no eyes to see. 



A word in conclusion on Vivillo. Neither io-norance nor 



o 



necessity impelled Joaquin Camargo, nicknamed El Vivillo (the 

 Lively One), to embark, at the age of twenty-five, on a career of 

 crime. Eather it was that spirit of knight-errantry, of reckless 

 adventure, that centuries before had swept the Spanish IMain, and 

 that nowadays, in baser sort, thrives and is fostered by a false 

 romance — as Diego Corrientes, the bandit, was reputed to be 

 " run" by a duchess, as the " Seven Lads of Ecija " terrorised 

 under the ^egis of exalted patronage, and Jose JNIaria, the 

 murderer of the Sierra Morena, was extolled as a melodramatic 

 hero by novelists all over Spain. On such lines young Camargo 

 thought to gather fresh glories for himself. He early gained 

 notoriety by a smart exploit in holding-up the diligence from Las 

 Cabezas for Villa Martin just when the September Fair was 

 proceeding at the latter place. The passengers, mostly cattle- 

 dealers, were relieved of bursting purses — no cheques pass current 

 at Villa Martin — to the tune of £8000. After that, for several 

 years, Vivillo ruled rural Andalucia, and his desperate deeds 

 supplied the papers with startling head-lines. When pursuit 

 became troublesome he embarked for Argentina, and soon his 

 name was forgotten. His retreat, however, was discovered, 



