the English custom of using
cheques against banking accounts, instead of dealing in metal or paper
currency only, as in Spain, strongly advocates the establishment of the
English method. It is only in quite recent years that there has been any
paper currency at all in Spain; the very notes of the Bank of Spain were
not current outside the walls of Madrid, and had only a limited
currency within.

Barcelona has long been called the Manchester of Spain, and in the days
before the "Gloriosa" it presented a great contrast to all the other
towns in the Peninsula. Its flourishing factories, its shipping, its
general air of a prosperous business-centre was unique in Spain. This is
no longer the case. Although the capital of Cataluna has made enormous
strides, and would scarcely now be recognised by those who knew it
before the Revolution, it has many rivals. Bilbao is already ahead of it
in some respects, and other ports, already mentioned, are running it
very close. Still, Barcelona is a beautiful city; its situation, its
climate, its charming suburbs full of delightful country houses, its
wealth of flowers, and its air of bustling industry, give a wholly
different idea of Spain to that so often carried away by visitors to the
dead and dying cities of which Spain has, unfortunately, too many.

It is becoming more common for young Spaniards to come to England to
finish their education, or to acquire business habits, and the study of
the English language is daily becoming more usual. In Spain, as already
remarked, no one speaks of the language of the country as "Spanish"; it
is always "Castellano," of which neither Valencian, Catalan, Galician,
still less Basque, is a dialect--they are all more or less languages in
themselves. But Castellano is spoken with a difference both by the
_pueblo bajo_ of Madrid and also in the provinces. The principal
peculiarities are the omission of the _d_--_prado_ becomes _praoe_--in
any case the pronunciation of _d_, except as an initial, is very soft,
similar to our _th_ in _thee_, but less accentuated. The final _d_ is
also omitted by illiterate speakers; _Usted_ is pronounced _Uste_, and
even _de_ becomes _e_. _B_ and _v_ are interchangeable. One used to see,
on the one-horsed omnibus which in old times represented the locomotion
of Madrid, _Serbicio de omnibus_ quite as often as _Servicio_. Over the
_venta_ of El Espirito Santo on the road to Alcala--now an outskirt of
Madrid--was written, _