In all parts of the country branches of these or similar institutions abound.  None are more liberal to the funds of these voluntary charities than the bull-fighters, who, if they make large fortunes, never forget the class from which they sprang, and are most generous in their donations.  When occasion demands an extra effort, a fiesta is given at the Plaza de Toros, and the whole of the profits go to the charity for which it has been held.  No doubt these schemes have their faults in operation, and Galdos in some of his popular novels does not fail to hold up—­not exactly for admiration—­the fashionable ladies who think it “smart,” as we should say, to join these boards and societies, and talk with much unction of their public good works and the statistics of their pet societies, while neglecting the poor and the needy at their own doors, or trying to send into “Homes” those who have no desire or need to go there if a little Christian charity were only shown them by their neighbours.  Nevertheless, there is a large amount of organised philanthropy in Spain to-day, and it appears to be of a wise and efficient kind.  One should not forget to mention also the workshops for the lowest orders, established by the Salerian Fathers, to which the attention of the Government has been called by late events.

The general position of women in Spain and their influence in public life cannot be described as of an advanced order.  As a rule, they take no leading part in politics, devoting themselves chiefly to charitable works, such as those already named.  There is, as we have seen, a general movement for higher education and greater liberty of thought and action amongst women, and there is a certain limited number who frankly range themselves on the side of so-called “emancipation,” who attend socialistic and other “meetings”—­a word which has now been formally admitted into the Spanish language—­and who aspire to be the comrades of men rather than their objects of worship or their playthings.  But this movement is scarcely more than in its infancy.  It must be remembered that even within the present generation the bedrooms allotted to girls were always approached through that of the parents, that no girl or unmarried woman could go unattended, and that to be left alone in the room with a man was to lose her reputation.  Already these things seem to be dreams of the past; nor could one well believe, what is however a fact, that there were fathers of the upper classes in the first half of the last century who preferred that their daughters should not learn to read or write, especially the latter, as it only enabled them to read letters clandestinely received from lovers and to reply to them.  The natural consequence of this was the custom, which so largely prevailed, of young men, absolutely unknown to the parents, establishing correspondence or meetings with the objects of their adoration by means of a complaisant doncella with an open palm, or the