October 1810; spent weeks and weeks in | is buried, a wounded one removed easily futile examination of the lines of Torres enough, their wants ere soon provided for; Védras; and recrossed into Spain on April but a ruined and devastated home cannot 3, 1811, "having lost thirty thousand men by want, sickness, and the sword." * As the only action of any importance that occurred during the retreat was that of Barrosa, at which the French loss was under a thousand, the reader can estimate for himself what proportion of the total loss was due to "want and sickness." be restored, and its scattered inhabitants collected in any appreciable time, perhaps never. Sometimes, too, the unhappy civilian, goaded to madness at the miseries inflicted on him, seizes arms and joins with the fury of despair in the defence of his village or farmhouse, as at Bazeilles and Chateaudun, thereby giving to his These are but two instances out of enemies a fresh handle, which they never many that might be quoted, but enough. fail to use, for increased exactions and Such protracted neglect and suffering further severity. The brevity of modern would be impossible in these days, for the campaigns, which have so materially benesimple reason if for no other that fited the soldier, produce no mitigation the soldier is now much too expensive an for the invaded country, for what is gained article to be squandered in such a whole-in time is lost in the numbers and rapidity sale manner. Much, of course, remains of modern armies. to be done; but the attention which gov- There seems to be absolutely no possiernments are now compelled to give to bility of modifying the position of the the subject, aided by the private efforts inhabitants of an invaded country. All, which the enthusiasm caused by the out- then, that can be done is to confine the break of war never fails to excite, will pro-area of operations as much as possible; vide the necessary means and the power and we cannot help thinking that the tenof properly applying them. The day dency of modern warfare is in this direcseems to be approaching when the soldier of any country having any pretensions to be a military power may take the field, confident that, apart from the strain on his constitution arising from a short but arduous campaign, the only danger he will incur will be from his foeman's weapons. If he will only look back and compare his lot with that of his military ancestors he will think himself fortunate. When we consider the position of the civilian, who may find his, country the theatre of future wars, we wish we could think his prospects equally hopeful. tion- that nations will in future endeavor Time was when a country might be invaded and half of it overrun and occupied while the other half remained almost in ignorance; but we have changed all that. All parts of a civilized country are now so closely connected by commerce, travel, and intercommunication of every sort, intelligence is so rapidly and widely diffused, that when an invasion takes place every one knows, and what is more, every one feels. It has already been observed how terrible a visitation is the presence of a hostile army. Modern armies are not now small fractions of the population whence they are drawn; they represent, It would be useless to attempt to give statistics of the losses inflicted on a country which is overrun by an invading army. Suffice it to say that the agricultural losses alone sustained by France in 1870-1 have been estimated at one hundred and sev-in fact are, whole nations in arms. enty million pounds. It would be difficult enough to ascertain the loss in worldly goods represented by this vast sum; but who could calculate its equivalent in sorrow, misery, starvation, disease, and death in all its various and most fearful shapes? We cannot help thinking that the sufferings of the civilian in war call more loudly for sympathy than those of the soldier; but, unfortunately, there is none to hear. As long as the civilian is merely an accessory in the picture of which the soldier is the foreground, so long must he suffer comparatively unnoticed. A dead soldier Alison's "History of Europe." After the battle of Sedan, notwithstanding the heavy losses she had suffered in the campaign, Germany had eight hundred thousand men on French soil. A comparison will give some idea of the vastness of this host. On October 16, 1813, there were assembled for the battle of Leipsic the military strength of three empires and three kingdoms, yet the total capitation of the forces was less than one half of the number above mentioned. The national character of modern warfare being admitted, a result once established will generally be decisive for the war in which it occurs; and should be considered so, for national superiority is of a kind that cannot be gainsaid or set | tyranny, the case is far different. In a aside. Austria saw this in 1866, and ac- Spanish prison each inmate wears the Icepted the hard and bitter truth in time dress in which he enters, which generally to save herself. It would have been well betokens his particular province, and cerfor France had she done the same. The tainly his station in life; he is called by triumph of Germany in 1870 was no mere his usual name, and he is free to do as he military triumph, but a national triumph, likes, whether his "like" be to work or to due to causes in accordance with which gamble, or to sleep the hours away. nations rise and fall. What France wanted after Sedan was a head clear enough to perceive this, and a hand strong enough to apply the only remedy, peace at any price. The writing was on the wall, traced in characters of blood and fire, but there was no one to read it. The only effect of her protracted resistance was to place her more and more at the mercy of the conqueror, and to prolong almost indefinitely the period that must elapse before she can renew the struggle. The moral of this is, that nations should keep their armies on the principle of sudden expansion and mobilization, ready to throw every man, every horse, and every gun on the frontier, for there and there only should the battle be fought. . And this is what is actually being done. The next war between two leading powers will probably see even the celerity of 1870 outstripped as regards preparation, and in the interests of the civilian it is to be hoped that the struggle may be fought at or near the frontier. Then, although the condition of those residing on the spot will be no better, the devastation will be confined to a smaller area. More than this it is at present impossible to hope for. P. S. C. From Temple Bar. VISIT TO A SPANISH PRISON. A SPANIARD, making his tour of inquiry through England, would glean no smattering at all of English national character from a visit to an English model prison. He would merely see law and order exhibited in their severest features, and the stolid rustic, the clever artisan, and the acute man of business reduced to machines for picking oakum to some purpose, or working on the treadmill for none. He would see the ploughman called, for the first time in his life, No. I and the fine gentleman No. 2; while the coarse prison dress, worn alike by one and all, would show him no difference between classes. In Spain, however, where a certain wild freedom, a certain respect of persons, is mingled with excessive oppression and Spanish prisons are of three kinds : first, the small house of detention, or lockup, or cárcel; secondly, the ordinary prison, or cárcel proper, where those condemned to short terms of imprisonment, and those undergoing or awaiting trial, are kept; and, thirdly, the presidio, or prison of large size, under military law, where all those who have been sentenced to a long term of imprisonment are kept under strict watch and ward. In this last, the convicts, called presidarios, work in chains, making government roads or renewing fortifications; some of these men are sentenced to as much as fifteen years of presidio. In the presidio the discipline is stricter; the clothes worn are generally prison garments; the inmates, from hard work and hard fare, lose much of their national characteristics, and, therefore, it is to a cárcel proper, or ordinary jail, that I propose to make a visit with my readers. The prison, which was formerly a convent, is a large, square stone building of three storeys, with the usual patio, or spacious courtyard, around which it is built, with its modest cloisters that offer a walk sheltered from the blazing sun. Two soldiers of the line kept guard, with fixed bayonets, outside, and the same number within; in the prison is, also, close to the door, a guardroom, where a party of six soldiers, and a cabo, or sergeant, were dozing, or writing on the sloping tables that form the Spanish soldiers' rude bedstead, and which are used both for writing and sleeping upon. As we entered the quadrangle, which looked bright and clear enough, the following sight met our eyes: about thirty clean, smiling young fellows, each wearing his ordinary clothes, and many of whom were smoking their customary cigarillos, lounging about or leaning against the wall chatting gaily enough; there was the peasant, from the wilds of the campo, his colored handkerchief knotted round his head, denoting him probably to be a Valenciano or Manchego, that primitive head-gear being still adhered to in those provinces; the trim artisan, in his jacket and striped trousers; and many wearing no article of clothing save a fine flannel vest and white trousers, the day being intensely hot. Just then a door opened, and two prisoners, called bastoneros - men who have a separate room, and a few little privileges ceded to them for their good conduct, popularity, and physical strength, on condition of their acting as the prepostores in a public school, and preserving a rude sort of discipline among their fellowsentered, bearing between them a huge caldron of guisado or stew. This they deposited upon the ground, and, without any pressing or confusion, each member of this batch of prisoners presented his wooden platter for his share of the breakfast. The quantity of this seemed to me greatly to exceed that of the food given for one meal in the civil or military prisons of England; but it must be remembered that the appetite of the Spaniard of the lower orders greatly exceeds that of an Englishman of the same class. The Spaniard drinks little but water, but the bulk of the succulent vegetables and fruit eaten by him is surprising; half a pound of bread, an ordinary soup-plate filled with stew, and a pound or two of grapes, would be no more than an average meal. As regards quality, the mess of red pottage presented to the prisoners was very good. The mess consisted of gourds, flour, garvancos, tomatoes, and lumps of bacon stewed up together to something of the same consistence as old-fashioned English pease-pudding. When each man's platter was filled, one of the bastoneros brought in a dish of small square pieces of bacon, and meted out one or two pieces to each man. This is the usual custom of the peasantry. I have often been dining with the family circle of a fisherman or laborer, and when we had finished the stew the master would rise, with all possible gravity, bring the little pieces of boiled bacon and pork sausage in the stewing-jar, and carefully, beginning with his wife and daughter, mete out an equal share of these tidbits to us all. It offends the family much if, after eating the stew, you reject the little piece of bacon. The daily scale of diet for the prisoners I ascertained to be as follows: But let it not be supposed that the bill of fare ends here. Each prisoner is allowed to be supplied by his relations with anything he may like in the way of food; and so at the grating of the Spanish prison one sees the dark-eyed, passionate, handsome girl giving to her unhappy caged lover half of her store of grapes, figs, or melons, or the careworn, tearful, greyhaired mother dealing out, on the same spot, morning after morning, all that, in justice to the rest of her hungry brood at home, she can spare from her basket of fruit and vegetables and bread for the one sheep of her flock who has gone astray. How often have I witnessed this sight, and heard from the mother's lips, “He is just as dear to me, for all that he has gone astray and is lost." And so, although most of the inmates of this prison were of the lowest classes, yet about one in every five supplemented his stew with a bunch of white grapes (now July) just coming into season, or a small sandia or water-melon, and a cigarette. As these poor fellows took away their platters and their bit of bacon each one said to us, "Have you breakfasted, sirs? If not, eat with us; the breakfast is regu lar (i.e. ordinarily good) to-day." A little cluster of them were kneeling down, I observed, in a corner of the courtyard, and when I peered over their shoulder to see what was the attraction, to my surprise they were feeding two tiny sparrows, who, they told me, had fallen out of their nest into the courtyard, and were now the pets of the patio! Certainly this courtyard, with its smoking, chatting inmates, cutting their melons, petting their tiny birds, their gay sashes, and pictu resque costumes, lit up by the bright sunlight, had very little of the prison look about it; and the gay laugh with which one of them addressed my companion, in whom he found an old friend, "Just a little affair of borracheria (drunkenness) brought me in here; I shall soon be out, and will pay you a visit," quite surprised me. Morning, at II A.M., stew or pottage as I found, however, that though there above described, the ingredients being were many in the prison for grave offences, varied from day to day. Of this the pris- yet that they were only birds of passage, oner has invariably more than he can eat. who, when sentenced, would be removed Sometimes it is made with rice; some-to the presidio to fulfil their several terms, times with fideos or vermicelli. Water, ad libitum; bread, good, 18 oz. Evening, at 5 P.M., gazpacho. i.e. lettuce, raw tomatoes, lumps of bread, raw onions sliced, floating in an ample quantity of oil, vinegar, and water. the prisoners proper in this jail being only those whose sentences varied from one month to six. From this patio we passed up-stairs, and investigated the upper storeys. The sleeping-arrangements, etc., were as follows: each room was twelve feet | prison, who enters the amount in a book, in height, twenty-four in breadth by twen- and from whom the prisoner can draw his ty-four, and lighted by one largish window, money, at the rate of 10d. per diem, until barred, but without glass; the floors were all his store is exhausted. simply bricked, the walls whitewashed; each prisoner brings his bed with him, and this cama, when transferred from the rude cottage to the prison, is called, in prison slang, petati, a word which originally meant a mat of fine cocoa-nut fibre; when a prisoner is taken, the first thing to be done by his family is to send him his rug, or manta, and his bed. These rooms are called the dormitorios, and ten prisoners inhabit each apartment, rolling up their beds (which are simply laid on the bricks, without any bedstead, to serve as a chair by day). No chairs of any sort, no movable furniture at all, save spoons and platters of wood, is allowed within the prison walls. Many of these poor fellows, I observed, retreated to their dormitorio to eat their breakfast; many had a little image or picture hung over their sleepingplace; some had a second suit of clothes, but not above four or five of the whole hundred and five prisoners. A Spanish prisoner hates to be without his knife, and although they are searched if it is suspected that they have one on their person, yet now and then a knife is safely smuggled in, in the centre of a loaf of bread. Of course the aspect of the whole place is singularly bare and comfortless, but it appeared to me perfectly clean; there was no offensive smell even in the infirmary, and the closets were, for Spain, where any cleanliness in those regions is very rare, fairly clean and sweet. Another liberty allowed to the prisoners is that of a separate apartment, which is yielded to any prisoner who can afford to "keep himself," or, as it is called, forego his rations. The rooms set aside for this purpose were perfectly bare, and untenanted just now; they seemed to differ from the others only in having a larger amount of light, and a good view of the busy street below. This license certainly seems like the exhibition of the refrain, "One law for the rich, and another for the poor; and yet one almost shudders to think of the ribald and obscene talk which must deaden the ears of any one accustomed to a purer tone of conversation than is usual with the Spanish lowest classes. With them blásphemy, obscenity, and swearing have long since lost their pungency, and perhaps let us hope it is so- - their guiltiness, for constantly one meets with a really good and honest fellow among the lower classes, whose conversation is absolutely interlarded with oaths most awful, and obscenity most revolting. I may here remark that no prisoner, of any sort or kind, may have wine or liquors brought to him under any pretext, except when ordered by the medical man. The enfermeria, although somewhat dark, and, of course, comfortless enough, possessed six iron bedsteads, and comfortable bedding. It seemed well ventilated, the floor and walls clean, and the two men nurses kindly and intelligent. Only one man was there, who was suffering from inflammation of the lungs; a fine These men are classed thus: in one place will be ten murderers, or slayers of men; in another, ten transitarios, or pris-black-bearded, stalwart fellow he seemed, eners who are on their weary march to the presidio, and are halted for the night at the prison of any town where they may happen to find themselves, for these prisoners, be it remarked, are marched by civil guards from town to town, carrying their bed on their back, and so on. All the inmates are allowed to walk about the cloisters of the especial storey to which they belong, and sometimes they all meet together in the lower patio, on days when they see their advocates. No prison dress of any sort is supplied; but should a man be a stranger, and penniless, the prison authorities supply him with a bed, such as it is, just sufficient to keep his bones from the bricks. In winter each man is allowed an extra rug. If any man has money on his person when taken, it is taken by the alcaide, or governor of the and very delighted with our visit. Although evidently in much suffering, when I expressed the hope that God would soon relieve his pain, he raised himself on one arm, and said, "A thousand thanks, and may you be spared bodily suffering.' The medical man receives as his salary £5 per month, and visits the prison daily; of course, out of that modest sum, he is not expected to pay for the drugs which he may see fit to order. The alcaide, or head-gaoler, receives £60 per annum, and a house within the prison walls for his wife and himself. He should, perhaps, be dignified by the title of "governor of the prison." The six or eight llaveros, or under-warders, receive £40 per annum, and rooms in the prison. We visited one, and found him and his wife really nice people. The chaplain visits twice a week: with us on parting, and told me they were fairly comfortable. All these offences were committed with the navaja, or clasp-knife. once in the week, and once on Sundays. He holds a misa in the church once on Sunday, and on every feast-day, at which the prisoners attend, but rarely delivers any sermon. He also, I believe, receives Lastly, we visited the women's part of a fixed salary. He also confesses those the house. Its accommodation was exwho desire it. Auricular confession how-actly the same as that of the men, nameever, is, I fancy, not very much in vogue ly, the four whitewashed walls, the brick among the class of persons who are found floor, a stretch of cloisters, or empty within these walls, although the Spanish rooms, in which to take their dreary daily peasant, instinctively true to the traditions walk, the usual little beds, now rolled up of his forefathers, uses the phrase, "a against the wall to serve for a seat. man who never confesses," as a term of Around the walls sate five young women, reproach. Thus, with the usual quaint decently but poorly dressed; one, a humor of his class and race a Spanish handsome, dark-browed Cordovese girl, peasant said to me, in reference to a pair from the Sierra, who seemed not more of savage hawks which I kept, and which than nineteen years of age, and whose made an onslaught on his fingers to some magnificent black hair, neatly braided, purpose, "No me gustan: hay una gente would have reached to her knees, had a que no confiesa, ie., "I do not like pretty little babe of nine months old playthem; they are a people who never con- ing at her feet. Her offence was that of fess." being an accomplice in horse-stealing, and as, of course, with Spanish honor, she would not betray her accomplices, she may have to suffer a long term of imprisonment. Holy communion is also celebrated at stated times; but the communicants are few. The Church in Spain strictly enjoins confession and participation in the holy communion once a year, at least, as absolutely necessary, and bids the heads of houses see that their servants fulfil at least this infinitesimal part of their Christian duties. No one is forced to confess, nor would a Protestant, if imprisoned, be forced, I believe, to attend the public service. According to Spanish law, or custom (which latter prevails more in this country), a mother may have with her in prison a baby at the breast, a good and wise regulation, we think, in a country like Spain. The employment of these five women was sewing. The men did absolutely nothing, except four or five who took in a daily paper, and conned in a dreamy way its uneventful details, and other few who One of the women was knitting a pair of garters-a useful article in Spain, where the knife is always carried in the garter when carried by a woman! We visited the kitchen, the judge's of fice, where the judge sits and examines the prisoner, who is presented at a grat-knitted stockings. ing in front of the judicial desk, looked in wonder at the mass of documents piled up on the shelves, and then visited the dormitory where the four worst cases were collected together. The warder The average age of the men seemed said to me, "You shall now see four men from twenty-one to thirty-one. The mawho have bad papers; who have com-jority were in prison for stabbing and robmitted manslaughter or murder." I ex-bery; one for forgery, one for rape, none pected to see the villanous, low type of for arson, fifteen or twenty for escándalos, criminal character so common in England i.e., disturbances; and about as many for among those who commit such crimes, drunkenness. and was surprised when I walked in to see four cleanly-dressed, handsome, openfaced young fellows, two of them of enormous physical strength, who greeted me with a bright smile, accepted a cigar apiece very graciously, and asked if I would break my fast with them. Among the curious customs prevalent in these prisons are the following: Supposing a gentleman's coachman be imprisoned for a trifling offence, say drunkenness, and his master requires his services to take his family into the campo for an airing, he is in such a case allowed to go out for the day, his master becoming personally responsible for his coachman's reappearance. One of them, I believe, had killed a policeman; another had slain his fellow deliberately, and not in hot blood; a third, who surely had no place in such company, Another curious custom is, that on had been attacked by four men, and killed Thursday and Friday in Holy Week a one in self-defence. They shook hands | table is placed in the street beneath the |