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.
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