any Protestant ever believed them capable of perpetrating. At an enthusiastic call for the author, a Catholic priest, Segismondo Pey-Ordeix, walked before the curtain. I have, therefore, made the most careful inquiry in regard to this reported finding of bombs. When I am assured most emphatically by a schoolmaster who was present in the attack on the convent that he saw and handled these objects, there is no room for doubt.
The hesitating reader must remember two facts. The first is that not a single bomb was used by the rioters, though they would have found them most useful in attacking the powerful convents or the troops. The second is that since the riot a remarkable number of bombs have been found by the police at most opportune moments, in situations where they were finely calculated to kill nobody. Do Anarchists work thus? But the constant announcement of such discoveries sustains in the Press of Europe that fictitious repute of Barcelona which enables Church and State to suspend civil law, and put thousands of men and women, who are known to be restive, in prison without trial. The bomb which was thrown at the tail of a procession in 1896 enabled the clerical and political controllers of Barcelona to rid the town of four hundred Freethinkers and Freemasons without trial. The bombs of to-day afford a pretext for maintaining the suspension of the constitutional guarantees, and keeping three thousand men and women in jail without trial. I am content to put the facts. The reader may judge.
This is the Barcelona in which Señor Costa finds the most corrupt cacique in Spain; in which the hundreds of wealthy convents stand out amid a bitterly hostile population. Let a spark fall on the inflammable material, and there will be a terrible conflagration.
The spark fell in July. The inner history of the war which Spain has entered upon in Morocco will one day be written. It is sufficient here to note that the workers of Catalonia believe that the war is waged solely in the interest of certain wealthy Catholics. A great many people in Europe besides the workers think so. The war was very unpopular, and indignation meetings multiplied. The Government forbade the holding of meetings, and increased the
