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 present edifice was begun under Philip V. in 1737 by Sacchetti of Turin, and was finished in 1764. It is in the Tuscan style, and is 470 ft. square and 100 ft. in height, the material being white Colmenar granite, resembling marble. To the north of the palace are the royal stables and coach-houses, remarkable for their extent; to the south is the armoury (Museo de la Real Armería), containing what is possibly the best collection of the kind in existence. After the Palacio Real may be mentioned the royal picture gallery (Real Museo de Pinturas), adjoining the Salon del Prado; it was built about 1785 for Charles III. by Juan de Villanueva as a museum of natural history and academy of sciences. It contains the collections of Charles V., Philip II. and Philip IV., and the pictures number upwards of two thousand. The specimens of Titian, Raphael, Tintoretto, Velazquez, Vandyck, Rubens and Teniers give it a claim to be considered the finest picture gallery in the world. The Biblioteca Nacional, in the Paseo de Recoletos, was founded in 1866, and completed in 1892. Not only the national library, with its important collections of MSS. and documents, but the archaeological museum, the museums of modern painting and sculpture, and the fine arts academy of San Fernando, are within its walls. The two houses of the Cortes meet in separate buildings. The deputies have a handsome building with a very valuable library in the Carrera San Jeronimo; the senators have an old Augustinian convent which contains some fine pictures. A large and handsome building near the Retiro Park contains the offices of the ministers of public works, agriculture and commerce, and of fine arts and education; nearly opposite stands the new station of the Southern Railway Company. The Great Northern and the Spain to Portugal Railway Companies have also replaced their old stations by very spacious, handsome structures, much resembling those of Paris. In 1896 the Royal Exchange was installed in a large monumental building with a fine colonnade facing the Dos de Mayo monument, not far from the museum of paintings.

Of the promenades and open places of public resort the most fashionable and most frequented is the Prado (Paseo del Prado, Salon del Prado) on the east side of the town, with its northward continuation—the Paseo de Recoletos. To the south of the town is the Paseo de las Delicias, and on the west, below the royal palace, and skirting the Manzanares, is the Paseo de la Virgen del Puerto, used chiefly by the poorer classes. Eastward from the Prado are the Buen Retiro Gardens, with ponds and pavilions, and a menagerie. The gardens were formerly the grounds surrounding a royal hunting seat, on the site of which a palace was built. for Philip IV. in 1633; it was destroyed during the French occupation.

Education, Religion and Charity.—Madrid University developed gradually out of the college of Doña Maria de Aragon, established in 1590 by Alphonso Orozco. Schools of mathematics and natural science were added in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in 1786 the medical and surgical college of San Carlos was opened. In 1836–1837 the university of (q.v.) was transferred to the capital and the older foundations incorporated with it. The university of Madrid thenceforth became the headquarters of education in central Spain. It has an observatory, and a library containing more than 2,000,000 printed books and about 5500 MSS. It gives instruction, chiefly in law and medicine, but also in literature, philosophy, mathematics and physics, to about 5000 students. Associated with the university is the preparatory school of San Isidro, founded by Philip IV. (1621–1665), and reorganized by Charles III. in 1770.

There are upwards of 100 official primary schools and a large number of private ones, among which the schools conducted by the Jesuits and the Scolapian fathers claim special mention. Madrid also has schools of agriculture, architecture, civil and mining engineering, the fine arts, veterinary science and music. The school of military engineering is at Guadalajara. Besides these special schools there are a self-supporting institute for preparing girls for the higher degrees and for certificates as primary teachers, and an institute for secondary education, conducted chiefly by ecclesiastics. Among the educational institutions may be reckoned the botanical garden, dating from 1781, the libraries of the palace, the university, and San Isidro, and the museum of natural science, exceedingly rich in the mineralogical department. The principal learned society is the royal Spanish Academy, founded in 1713 for the cultivation and improvement of the Spanish tongue. The Academy of History possesses a good library, rich in MSS. and incunabula, as well as a fine collection of coins and medals. In addition to the academies of fine arts, the exact sciences, moral and political science, medicine and surgery, and jurisprudence and legislation, all of which possess libraries, there are also anthropological, economic and geographical societies, and a scientific and literary athenaeum. Madrid has a British cemetery opened in 1853, when the older Protestant cemetery in the Paseo de Recoletos was closed. The town also contains a British embassy chapel, a German chapel, and several Spanish Protestant chapels, attended by over 1200 native Protestants, while the Protestant schools, chiefly supported by British, German and American contributions, are attended by more than 2500 children. The first Protestant bishop of Madrid was consecrated in 1895 by Archbishop Plunkett of Dublin. The charitable institutions were greatly improved between 1885 and 1905. The Princess Hospital was completely restored on modern methods, and can accommodate several hundred patients. The old contagious diseases hospital of San Juan de Dios was pulled down and a fine new hospital built in the suburbs beyond the Retiro Park, to hold 700 patients. The military hospital was demolished and a very good one built in the suburbs. There are in all twenty hospitals in Madrid, and a lunatic asylum on the outskirts of the capital, founded by one of the most eminent of Spanish surgeons, and admirably conducted. New buildings have been provided for the orphanages, and for the asylums for the blind, deaf and dumb, incurables and aged paupers. There are hospitals supported by the French, Italian and Belgian colonies; these are old and well-endowed foundations. Public charity generally is very active. In Madrid, as in the rest of Spain, there has been an unprecedented increase in convents, monasteries and religious institutions, societies and Roman Catholic workmen’s clubs and classes.

Apart from private institutions for such purposes, the state maintains in the capital a savings bank for the poorer classes, and acts as pawnbroker for their benefit. The mercantile and industrial classes are organized in gilds, which themselves collect the lump sum of taxation exacted by the exchequer and the municipality from each gremio or class of taxpayers. The working classes also have commercial and industrial circulos or clubs that are obeyed by the gilds with great esprit de corps, a chamber of commerce and industries, and “associations of productions” for the defence of economic interests.

Industries.—The industries of the capital have developed extraordinarily since 1890. In the town, and within the municipal boundaries in the suburbs, many manufactories have been established, giving employment to more than 30,000 hands, besides the 4000 women and girls of the Tobacco Monopoly Company’s factory. Among the most important factories are those which make every article in leather, especially cigar and card cases, purses and pocket-books. Next come the manufactures of fans, umbrellas, sunshades, chemicals, varnishes, buttons, wax candles, beds, cardboard, porcelain, coarse pottery, matches, baskets, sweets and preserves, gloves, guitars, biscuits, furniture, carpets, corks, cards, carriages, jewelry, drinks of all kinds, plate and plated goods. There are also tanneries, saw and flour mills, glass and porcelain works, soap works, brickfields, paper mills, zinc, bronze, copper and iron foundries. The working classes are strongly imbued with socialistic ideas. Strikes and May Day demonstrations have often been troublesome. Order is kept by a garrison of 12,500 men in the barracks of the town and cantonments around, and by a strong force of civil guards or gendarmes quartered in the town itself. The civil and municipal authorities can employ beside the gendarmes the police, about 1400 strong, and what is called the guardias urbanos, another police force whose special duty it is to regulate the street traffic and prevent breaches of the municipal regulations. There is not, on the average, more crime in Madrid than in the provinces.

History.—Spanish archaeologists have frequently claimed for Madrid a very high antiquity, but the earliest authentic historical mention of the town (Majrít, Majoritum) occurs in the Arab chronicle, and does not take us farther back than to the first half of the 10th century. The place was finally taken from the Moors by Alphonso VI. (1083), and was made a hunting-seat by Henry IV., but first rose into importance when Charles V., benefiting by its keen air, made it his occasional residence. Philip II. created it his capital and “only court” (única corte) in 1560. It is, however, only classed as a town (villa), having