ot 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 pastime known as
_pelando el pavo_ (literally plu