ck with pride upon that time;
because, after the battle of Alcolea, when the cry raised in the Puerta
del Sol, _Viva Prim!_ was answered by the troops shut up in the
Government offices, and the people, swarming up the _rejas_ and the
balconies, fraternised with their brothers-in-arms, who had been
intended, could they have been trusted by their commanders, to shoot
them down, Madrid was for some days wholly in the hands of King Mob, and
of King Mob armed. The victorious troops were still at some distance,
the Queen and her _camarilla_ had fled across the frontier, the
Government had vanished, and the people were a law unto themselves. Yet
not one single act of violence was committed; absolute peace and
quietness, and perfect order prevailed. The ragged men in the street
formed themselves into guards: just as they were, they took up their
positions at the abandoned Palace, at the national buildings and
institutions; the troops were drawn up outside Madrid and its people
were its guardians. Committees of emergency were formed; everything went
on as if nothing unusual had happened, and not a single thing was
touched or destroyed in the Palace, left wholly at the mercy of the
sovereign people. The excesses which took place in some of the towns,
after the brutal assassination of Prim and the abdication of Amadeo,
were rather the result of political intrigue and the working of
interested demagogues on the passions of people misled and used as
puppets.

With the advance of commerce and industry, and the massing of workers in
the towns, has come, as in other countries, the harvest of the
demagogue. Strikes and labour riots now and then break out, and the
Spanish anarchist is not unknown. But the investment of their money in
industrial and commercial enterprises, so largely increasing, is giving
the people the best possible interest in avoiding disturbances of this,
or of any other, kind: and as knowledge of more enlightened finance is
penetrating to the working people themselves, the number who are likely
to range themselves on the side of law and order is daily increasing.
The improved railway and steamer communication with parts of the country
heretofore isolated, much of it only completed since this book was
begun--in fact, within the last few months--is bringing the northern and
western ports into prominence. Galicia now not only has an important
industry in supplying fresh fish for Madrid, but has a good increasing
trade