Perhaps In The Crowded Prison Of Madrid, There Were Not More
Than Twenty Who Exhibited The Dress Which I Have
Attempted to
describe above; these were jente de reputacion, tip-top thieves,
mostly young fellows, who, though they had no
Money of their own,
were supported in prison by their majas and amigas, females of a
certain class, who form friendships with robbers, and whose glory
and delight it is to administer to the vanity of these fellows with
the wages of their own shame and abasement. These females supplied
their cortejos with the snowy linen, washed, perhaps, by their own
hands in the waters of the Manzanares, for the display of the
Sunday, when they would themselves make their appearance dressed a
la maja, and from the corridors would gaze with admiring eyes upon
the robbers vapouring about in the court below.
Amongst those of the snowy linen who most particularly attracted my
attention, were a father and son; the former was a tall athletic
figure of about thirty, by profession a housebreaker, and
celebrated throughout Madrid for the peculiar dexterity which he
exhibited in his calling. He was now in prison for a rather
atrocious murder committed in the dead of night, in a house at
Caramanchel, in which his only accomplice was his son, a child
under seven years of age. "The apple," as the Danes say, "had not
fallen far from the tree"; the imp was in every respect the
counterpart of the father, though in miniature. He, too, wore the
robber shirt sleeves, the robber waistcoat with the silver buttons,
the robber kerchief round his brow, and, ridiculous enough, a long
Manchegan knife in the crimson faja. He was evidently the pride of
the ruffian father, who took all imaginable care of this chick of
the gallows, would dandle him on his knee, and would occasionally
take the cigar from his own moustached lips and insert it in the
urchin's mouth. The boy was the pet of the court, for the father
was one of the valientes of the prison, and those who feared his
prowess, and wished to pay their court to him, were always fondling
the child. What an enigma is this world of ours! How dark and
mysterious are the sources of what is called crime and virtue! If
that infant wretch become eventually a murderer like his father, is
he to blame? Fondled by robbers, already dressed as a robber, born
of a robber, whose own history was perhaps similar. Is it right?
O, man, man, seek not to dive into the mystery of moral good and
evil; confess thyself a worm, cast thyself on the earth, and murmur
with thy lips in the dust, Jesus, Jesus!
What most surprised me with respect to the prisoners, was their
good behaviour; I call it good when all things are taken into
consideration, and when I compare it with that of the general class
of prisoners in foreign lands. They had their occasional bursts of
wild gaiety, their occasional quarrels, which they were in the
habit of settling in a corner of the inferior court with their long
knives; the result not unfrequently being death, or a dreadful gash
in the face or the abdomen; but, upon the whole, their conduct was
infinitely superior to what might have been expected from the
inmates of such a place. Yet this was not the result of coercion,
or any particular care which was exercised over them; for perhaps
in no part of the world are prisoners so left to themselves and so
utterly neglected as in Spain: the authorities having no farther
anxiety about them, than to prevent their escape; not the slightest
attention being paid to their moral conduct and not a thought
bestowed upon their health, comfort or mental improvement, whilst
within the walls. Yet in this prison of Madrid, and I may say in
Spanish prisons in general, for I have been an inmate of more than
one, the ears of the visitor are never shocked with horrid
blasphemy and obscenity, as in those of some other countries, and
more particularly in civilized France; nor are his eyes outraged
and himself insulted, as he would assuredly be, were he to look
down upon the courts from the galleries of the Bicetre. And yet in
this prison of Madrid were some of the most desperate characters in
Spain: ruffians who had committed acts of cruelly and atrocity
sufficient to make the flesh shudder. But gravity and sedateness
are the leading characteristics of the Spaniards, and the very
robber, except in those moments when he is engaged in his
occupation, and then no one is more sanguinary, pitiless, and
wolfishly eager for booty, is a being who can be courteous and
affable, and who takes pleasure in conducting himself with sobriety
and decorum.
Happily, perhaps, for me, that my acquaintance with the ruffians of
Spain commenced and ended in the towns about which I wandered, and
in the prisons into which I was cast for the Gospel's sake, and
that, notwithstanding my long and frequent journeys, I never came
in contact with them on the road or in the despoblado.
The most ill-conditioned being in the prison was a Frenchman,
though probably the most remarkable. He was about sixty years of
age, of the middle stature, but thin and meagre, like most of his
countrymen; he had a villainously-formed head, according to all the
rules of craniology, and his features were full of evil expression.
He wore no hat, and his clothes, though in appearance nearly new,
were of the coarsest description. He generally kept aloof from the
rest, and would stand for hours together leaning against the walls
with his arms folded, glaring sullenly on what was passing before
him. He was not one of the professed valientes, for his age
prevented his assuming so distinguished a character, and yet all
the rest appeared to hold him in a certain awe:
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