A SPANISH ROBBER. BY GEORGE HOGARTH. A NOTED Spanish brigand a short time ago, at Madrid, expiated on the scaffold the atrocities of his life. His history, as it transpired on his trial, is sufficient to furnish the ground-work of a romantic tale or melo.drama, according to the most approved fashion of the day; though its incidents are of themselves wild and strange enough, even without any aid from fiction. The name of Beltran Labrador had long spread terror through the country round Madrid. He was not content with the vulgar crimes of robbery and murder, but took a fiend-like pleasure in putting his victims to the most horrible tortures. All the inventions of the ruffians who, under the name of chauffeurs, perpetrated such horrible cruelties in France during the Revolution, were poor and commonplace compared to his devices for protracting the agony of the wretches who fell into his hands. At the head of a band of followers as ruthless as himself, he suddenly surprised the unsuspecting inmates of some peaceful dwelling, and having done his work of plunder and death, disappeared, leaving no clue by which his footsteps could be traced. His security was no doubt owing to his exterininating policy; for he always took care to leave behind him no living witness of his crimes. In the village of Alameda del Valle, near Madrid, there lived a respectable farmer of the name of Ramon Espinosa, who passed for a man of substance, and was understood to keep in his house a considerable sum of money. He lived, with his wife, his daughter, and his son, a child of eight years old, in a house at some short distance from the other houses of the village. One day he had brought home some oranges, and wishing to put them out of the little boy's reach, he laid them on the top of a large press which stood in the kitchen; but this difficulty was not sufficient to baulk the appetite of a boy of that age. In the evening, finding himself left alone for a few minutes, he began to scramble to the top of the press, in order to get at the oranges, and had just reached it when he heard the door open. Afraid of being caught in the act of theft, and not having time to get down, he laid himself flat on the top of the press, concealed by the ledge which ran along its front. His mother and sister came in and noticed his absence, but without uneasiness, thinking he had gone into a neighbour's house; and they were preparing to go for him, when they heard a knocking at the house door. They both ran to open it, when three men, masked and armed, rushed in and seized them, threatening them with instant death, if they uttered a sound. The ruffians then commanded the women, with horrible threats and imprecations, to show them where Ramon kept his money. There either was none, or the women did not know where it was kept, and they accordingly protested their ignorance. The robbers beat them savagely, and set about ransacking every place they could think of, even the press on the top of which the poor child lay trembling, but without being able to discover the object of their search. Their disappointment rendered them furious. Labrador, finding a pair of pincers, began using it as an instrument of torture to compel the women to speak. They continued to protest their ignorance of any money being in the house; and the robber, thrusting the pincers into the fire, heated them red-hot, and with them tore the flesh in large pieces from the bones of his victims. Even this horrid cruelty failed in its effect. The miserable women in their agony could only cry that they had nothing to tell; and to complete the tragedy, the miscreant, having put a vessel of oil on the fire, poured the boiling liquid on the most tender parts of their bodies, till they expired under the violence of their torments. The ruffians, thinking themselves now without witnesses, set about their work of plunder, having previously taken off their masks; so that the little boy, who had escaped their search almost by a miracle, and had witnessed the whole dreadful scene, obtained a view of their hideous faces. They packed up the most valuable articles they could find, and departed. The poor child, half dead with grief and horror, crept down from his hiding-place, and gave the alarm. A pursuit immediately took place, but without effect. It was discovered that the robbers had entered Madrid; but at the gates of the city all traces of them were lost. Descriptions of their persons and of their horses were given to the police; strict search was made in all the inns and stables of Madrid; but for a considerable time every effort at discovery was fruitless. At last, in the night of the 19th November, 1836, Don Francisco Huerta, the commandant of the city patrol, making his rounds, and going along the Passage of the Conservatory (Travesia del Conservatorio,) observed near the door of one Gabriel Catalan, a working mason, a quantity of stable-litter, which had not been swept away. The commandant entered this man's house to reprove him for his negligence, when Catalan said he had no horses. This denial appeared suspicious; and, being urged and threatened by the commandant, the man at length confessed that he had three horses in his stable, of which he delivered the key. The horses were recognised as belonging to Labrador and his gang; and Catalan, being closely pressed, declared that one of them belonged to Jose Perez, a Galician, who lived in the street of the Panaderos, at No. 14, in the second floor; another to Leandro Portigo, in the street Santa Brigitta ; and the third to a Catalonian, whose residence he could not point out. He added that, four days before, these men had returned from the country with their horses, and that they were in the habit of taking frequent journeys. Having obtained these particulars, Don Francisco Huerta immediately repaired to the residence of Jose Perez, whom he arrested. Perez denied that he possessed any horse, but his servant admitted that he did. He was carried to prison, and judicial investigations set on foot. On being examined, he declared that his name was Jose Perez, and that he was born at Oviedo. All the parish registers of that city and its neighbourhood were searched, but no entry of any such name was found in them; and in the course of the proceedings he was identified by several persons as the famous robber Beltran Labrador, a Frenchman by birth, and a tinker by trade. He was also recognised as having been formerly condemned, on one occasion, to four years' imprisonment, and on another to the same punishment for ten years, though he had on both occasions found means to make his escape. But his career was now ended. After a long time spent in collecting the necessary evidence, he was at length brought to trial, and condemned to die by strangulation (el garrote vile.) On the 27th of October last this sentence was executed. This man's fate inspired none of the compassion usually felt even for great criminals, when they are about to expiate their misdeeds by a shameful death. The ferocity of his countenance excited disgust; his small and hollow eyes gleamed with extraordinary brightness; and his whole deportment was marked with that brutal indif ference, which showed that he was capable of committing every enor mity without emotion and without remorse. His deportinent in his last hours was marked by several charac teristic traits. When his sentence was read to him in prison, he continued smoking with great calmness, and heard it to the end with indifference. When it was finished, he declared that his name was not Beltran Labrador, but Jose Perez; that he was no Frenchman, but a Spaniard, born and baptized at Orense. Some moments afterwards he appeared to be suddenly excited, and uttered several inde. cent and blasphemous expressions, but almost immediately resumed his usual quiet and careless manner. He was visited by a priest, who began to exhort him to penitence and amendment." Amend. ment!" cried he, laughing; "what is the use of resolving on amendment? I shall not sin any more; they won't give me time for that now." The priest endeavoured to rouse him by describing the eternal tortures of the damned. "I hope," was his answer," that I shall get a discount of the two years I have been kept in prison; for there," he added, laughing again, "I have been in hell to all intents and purposes, and have seen the very devils themselves. They came to me every Saturday, in the shape of officers and alguazils-a set of as ugly devils as there are in hell!" The day before his execution he was in a somewhat better frame of mind. He confessed his crimes, and recounted a fearful tissue of enormities. The priest endeavoured to persuade him to marry a woman who had lived with him a long time, and by whom he had a daughter, sixteen years old. He obstinately refused, till he was about to proceed to the scaffold, when he gave his consent. A delay of a few hours was obtained, a notary was sent for, the marriage ceremony was performed, and the certificate drawn up and signed. This solemnity seemed to have some effect on the ruffian's mind; and he now declared that his real name was Bertrand Bué, and that he was a native of a small village in France. When the moment of his departure for the scaffold was come he walked with a firm step, and an air of the utmost composure. He took leave of his companions in prison with some appearance of feel. ing, requesting them to pray for him, and to say a "salve" to the Virgin for the repose of his soul. When he was mounted on the ass (according to the usual manner in which criminals in Spain are conveyed to the scaffold) he adjusted himself carefully in his seat, and then, turning to the escort, said to them, "Now, gentlemen, let us move on, if you please." He maintained the same demeanour to the last, and without the slightest change of countenance, yielded his neck to the executioner. This man met his fate with a semblance of courage and firmness worthy of a martyr to some great or holy cause. His very jocularity actually brings to mind the last moments of Sir Thomas More. How little is to be gathered from mere manner! A monster, whose life was stained with the blackest and basest crimes, and whose mind must really have possessed the cowardice which is constantly allied to cruelty, could not have had a glimmering of the sentiments which have enabled so many of the best and bravest of men to conduct themselves, in outward show at least, precisely as he did. In this, as in other things, extremes may meet, and brutal insensibility may assume the semblance of exalted virtue. A VISIT TO HOLKHAM HALL. 66 BY THE AUTHOR OF A PARISIAN SABBATH." Here Holkham rears in graceful pride Her marble halls and crested towers, Her lengthen'd suit of social bowers.-Roscoe. "You will not leave this part of the country," said a fellow-traveller, "without seeing Holkham Hall."-" And be assured," added another, "your reception will be gratifying. There is not a house of equal hospitality in the kingdom. Strangers or acquaintancesnone are neglected. Ah, and the proprietor is a nice old gentle. man-eighty-three years old, and still hearty as a man of fifty. Thirteen years ago he, childless, married a lady aged nineteen. He has now five children." The grounds, including gardens, and park, and forest, and mea. dows, the fields of corn, are bounded by a circumference of ten miles. Within this circumference is an artificial lake, regarded by many as the most superb in England. Walks and rides intersect these grounds in every convenient direction. Here you move under a triumphal arch; before you arises soon a lofty obelisk; upon your right spread out five hundred acres of barley; and anon you enter Lady Anne Coke's beautiful flower-garden, planned by the taste of Chantrey. Sheep, whereof here are twenty-two hundred of the veritable South Down breed; cattle, of which there are three hundred belonging to the stock of Devon; milch-cows, whereof thirty constitute the dairy; horses, whereof fifty enjoy stalls at Holkham; tenantry, of whom two hundred are happy to acknowledge this excellent landlord; and labourers, of whom two thousand are said to be continually employed by him, meet your eye wherever it is turned; and nearly in the centre of this circumference stands the House of Holkham-a magnificent pile. It was erected about eighty years since by the Earl and Countess of Leicester. It consists of a large central building with four wings, and you are informed that, "measuring closely by all the angles," it is just one mile in circumference. The house is open for public inspection on two days of each week; and well may it be thus opened; for it contains treasures in tapestry, sculpture, and painting, that richly repay the visiter for his time and trouble. In this respect, as a repository of art, Holkham is one of the many valuable houses in England. There is in England no Louvre. England is truly rich in works of art; but they are scattered-a Claude here, a Titian there, and distant a hundred miles or more, amidst sculpture both ancient and modern, may be found a Salvator Rosa and a Raphael. Of all sight-seeing in England, that which includes statuary and painting is the least satisfactory. If haply you have an acquaintence with a possessor of worthy products of art, and hence enjoy free and frequent admission to his collection, it is all very well. If, how ever, like a thousand other travellers, you must content yourself with a single visit, that visit will afford little pleasure, and less instruction. You will by pampered servants be hurried hastily through the halls; and when at length you leave them, the master-pieces just seen are scattered here and there through your memory, in as much disorder |