They Occupy The
Site Of The Ancient Jewish Markets, And The Zealous Prelate Tenorio,
Cousin To The Great Lady's Man Don Juan, Could Think Of No Better Way Of
Acquiring The Ground Than That Of Stirring Up The Mob To Burn The Houses
Of The Heretics.
A fresco that adorns the gate explains the means
employed, adding insult to the old injury.
It is a picture of a
beautiful child hanging upon a cross; a fiendish-looking Jew, on a
ladder beside him, holds in his hand the child's heart, which he has
just taken from his bleeding breast; he holds the dripping knife in his
teeth. This brutal myth was used for centuries with great effect by the
priesthood upon the mob whenever they wanted a Jew's money or his blood.
Even to-day the old poison has not lost its power. This very morning I
heard under my window loud and shrill voices. I looked out and saw a
group of brown and ragged women, with babies in their arms, discussing
the news from Madrid. The Protestants, they said, had begun to steal
Catholic children. They talked themselves into a fury. Their elf-locks
hung about their fierce black eyes. The sinews of their lean necks
worked tensely in their voluble rage. Had they seen our mild missionary
at that moment, whom all men respect and all children instinctively
love, they would have torn him in pieces in their Maenad fury, and would
have thought they were doing their duty as mothers and Catholics.
This absurd and devilish charge was seriously made in a Madrid journal,
the organ of the Moderates, and caused great fermentation for several
days, street rows, and debates in the Cortes, before the excitement died
away. Last summer, in the old Murcian town of Lorca, an English
gentleman, who had been several weeks in the place, was attacked and
nearly killed by a mob, who insisted that he was engaged in the business
of stealing children, and using their spinal marrow for lubricating
telegraph wires! What a picture of blind and savage ignorance is here
presented! It reminds us of that sad and pitiful "blood-bath revolt" of
Paris, where the wretched mob rose against the wretched tyrant Louis
XV., accusing him of bathing in the blood of children to restore his own
wasted and corrupted energies.
Toledo is a city where you should eschew guides and trust implicitly to
chance in your wanderings. You can never be lost; the town is so small
that a short walk always brings you to the river or the wall, and there
you can take a new departure. If you do not know where you are going,
you have every moment the delight of some unforeseen pleasure. There is
not a street in Toledo that is not rich in treasures of
architecture, - hovels that once were marvels of building, balconies of
curiously wrought iron, great doors with sculptured posts and lintels,
with gracefully finished hinges, and studded with huge nails whose
fanciful heads are as large as billiard balls.
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