om remain in the house. Fernan
Caballero devotes some pages in _Clemencia_ to showing how preferable is
the Spanish custom of "remaining among friends" to that of the newly
married couple, as she says, "exposing themselves to the jeers of
postilions and stable-boys." Yet the English custom is in fact gaining
ground, even in conservative Spain.

Although marriages are often made up by the parents and guardians, as in
France, without any freedom on the part of the bride at least, custom or
law gives the Spanish woman much more power than even in England. A girl
desiring to escape from a marriage repugnant to her can claim protection
from a magistrate, who will even, if necessary, take her out of her
father's custody until she is of age and her own mistress. More than
that, if a girl determines to marry a man of whom her parents
disapprove, she has only to place herself under the protection of a
magistrate to set them at defiance, nor have they the power to deprive
her of the share of the family property to which by Spanish law she is
entitled. I do not know if these things are altered now,--one does not
hear so much of them,--but I know of several cases where daughters have
been married from the magistrate's house against the wishes of their
parents. In one case, the first intimation a father received of his
daughter's engagement was the notice from a neighbouring magistrate that
she was about to be married, and in another, a daughter left her
mother's house and was married from that of the magistrate to a man
without any income and considerably below her in rank. In all these
cases, the contracting parties were of the upper classes.

While on this subject, I must mention what seems to us the barbarous
manner in which infants are clothed and brought up, though the English
fashions of baths, healthy clothing, and suitable food are now largely
followed amongst the upper classes. When the King was still an infant a
great deal of his clothing came from England, and he was brought up in
the English method. This probably set the fashion, and the little ones
playing in the Park now are much like those one is accustomed to see in
London. But among the poor, and even some of the bourgeois class, the
old insane customs prevail, and it is not surprising to hear that the
death-rate among infants is extraordinarily high. From its birth the
poor child is tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes, confining all its
limbs, so that it present