ast years, however, the newspapers
sometimes have contained serious essays, but of late these appear
extremely seldom.

[47] Vide Pigafetta.

[48] Cock-fighting is not alluded to in the "Ordinances of good
government," collected by Hurtado Corcuera in the middle of the
seventeenth century. In 1779 cock-fights were taxed for the first
time. In 1781 the government farmed the right of entrance to
the galleras (derived from gallo, rooster) for the yearly sum of
$14,798. In 1863 the receipts from the galleras figured in the budget
for $106,000.

A special decree of 100 clauses was issued in Madrid on the 21st of
March, 1861, for the regulation of cock-fights. The 1st clause declares
that since cock-fights are a source of revenue to the State, they
shall only take place in arenas licensed by the Government. The 6th
restricts them to Sundays and holidays; the 7th, from the conclusion
of high mass to sunset. The 12th forbids more than $50 to be staked
on one contest. The 38th decrees that each cock shall carry but one
weapon, and that on its left spur. By the 52nd the fight is to be
considered over when one or both cocks are dead, or when one shows
the white feather. In the London Daily News of the 30th June, 1869,
I find it reported that five men were sentenced at Leeds to two
months' hard labor for setting six cocks to fight one another with
iron spurs. From this it appears that this once favorite spectacle
is no longer permitted in England.

[49] The raw materials of these adventures were supplied by a French
planter, M. de la Gironiere, but their literary parent is avowedly
Alexander Dumas.

[50] Botanical gardens do not seem to prosper under Spanish
auspices. Chamisso complains that, in his day, there were no traces
left of the botanical gardens founded at Cavite by the learned
Cuellar. The gardens at Madrid, even, are in a sorry plight; its
hothouses are almost empty. The grounds which were laid out at great
expense by a wealthy and patriotic Spaniard at Orotava (Teneriffe),
a spot whose climate has been of the greatest service to invalids, are
rapidly going to decay. Every year a considerable sum is appropriated
to it in the national budget, but scarcely a fraction of it ever
reaches Orotava. When I was there in 1867, the gardener had received
no salary for twenty-two months, all the workmen were dismissed,
and even the indispensable water supply had been cut off.

[51] For a proof of this vide the Berlin Ethnog