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148 DAYS IN THE SUN
In the manufacture and sale of spurious and adul-
terated foods and other articles, no other city can out-
strip Madrid. This city, lying in the midst of a great
bare plateau, is a capital only in name and has been
obliged to put on all the European shams in order to
satisfy all the cosmopolitan demands. ‘Those of its
one million inhabitants who do not draw their sus-
tenance from the court or from the bureaucratic ad-
ministration, make a living by manufacturing food-
stuffs of chalk, erecting splendid apartment houses of
holes in the air surrounded by pasteboard, and pre-
paring lovely articles of papier-maché which are ex-
hibited in the luxury shops with much gilding and elec-
tric illumination and window-dressing.
The Andalusian too has plenty of sham in his com-
mercial shops. Still he does not manufacture the bogus
stuff himself. He is too inexperienced, both as a mer-
chant and as a consumer, to detect the difference. It
is dificult to conquer him for the new culture. He is
protected from it by all his qualities, good as well as
bad.
When a Nordic importer has received a consign-
ment of wine from an Andalusian exporter, he may to
his profit quite easily take advantage of the Andalusi-
an’s inexperience in the tricks of the trade. He may
send a cable immediately, announcing that the wine is
not up to the quality agreed on, and the Andalusian,
without making any preliminary investigation, will take
the man’s word and send a new consignment to make
up for the defect of the old. If he discovers that he
has been deceived, he will make no protest and will not
go to court. He will show his scorn for the customer
by letting him get away with it this once; but he will
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