MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

PORTUGAL.

(Abridged chiefly from the Rev. Mr. Kinsey's "Portugal Illustrated.")

Spaniards and Portuguese.—"Strip a Spaniard of all his virtues, and you make a good Portuguese of him," says the Spanish proverb. I have heard it said more truly, "Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices, and you have the Portuguese character." These nations blaspheme God by calling each other natural enemies. Their feelings are mutually hostile; but the Spaniards despise the Portuguese, and the Portuguese hate the Spaniards.—Southey.

Portugal.—Situated by the side of a country just five times its size, Portugal, but for the advantageous position of its coast, the good faith of England, and the weakness of its hostile neighbour, impassable roads, and numerous strong places, would long since have returned to the primitive condition of an Iberian province; but its separate existence as a nation has been preserved to it by the strength of the British alliance being brought into a glorious co-operation with all its own internal means of defence.—Kinsey.

Column of Disgrace.—About the middle of the last century, the Duke of Aviero was detected in a conspiracy with the Jesuits in Portugal, and accordingly executed. His house, at Belem, was levelled to the ground at the time of the Duke's decapitation, and on the site was erected a column of disgrace, which still remains, though some shops have been erected beside it to hide the inscription; a just symbol of the conduct of the nation on this subject, for what they cannot alter they strive to conceal.

Over the proscenium of the opera-house at Lisbon is a large clock placed rather in advance, whose dexter supporter is old Time with his scythe, and the sinister, one of the Muses playing on a lyre.

A Lisbon Dandy.—A small, squat, puffy figure incased within a large pack-saddle, upon the back of a lean, high-boned, straw-fed, cream-coloured nag, with an enormously flowing tail, whose length and breadth would appear to be each night guarded from discolouration by careful involution above the hocks. Taken, from his gridiron spurs and long pointed boots, up his broad, blue-striped pantaloons, à la Cossaque, to the thrice-folded piece of white linen on which he is seated in cool repose; thence by his cable chain, bearing seals as large as a warming-pan, and a key like an anchor; then a little higher to the figured waistcoat of early British manufacture, and the sack-shapened coat, up to the narrow brim sugar-loaf hat on his head,—where can be found his equal? Nor does he want a nose as big as the gnomon of a dial-plate; and two flanks of impenetrable, deep, black brushwood, extending under either ear, and almost concealing the countenance, to complete the singular contour of his features.

A Lisbon Water-carrier earns about sixpence per day, the moiety of which serves to procure him his bread, his fried sardinha from a cook's stall, and a little light wine perhaps, on holidays,—water being his general beverage, nay, one might almost say, his element. A mat in a large upper room, shared with several others, serves him in winter as a place of repose for the night; but during the summer he frequently sleeps out in the open air, making his filled water-barrel his pillow.

Vanity.—A young Lisbon dandy hearing an Englishman complain of the intolerable filth and stench of his metropolis, retorted that, for his part, when he was in London, it was the absence of that filth, and the want of the smells complained of, that had rendered his residence in our metropolis so disagreeable and uncomfortable to him. "No passion," as Southey says, "makes a man a liar so easily as vanity."

Dogs.—In Lisbon dogs seem to luxuriate under the violence of the heat, and to avoid the shady sides of the streets, though the thermometer of Fahrenheit be at 110 degrees; and scarcely an instance of canine madness is ever known to occur. When the French decreed the extinction of the tribe of curs that infest the streets, no native executioner could be found to put the exterminating law in force; nay, the very measure excited popular indignation.

Golden Sands.—Perhaps originally it was the fabled gold of the Tagus which attracted Jews to Lisbon in such numbers, and the general persuasion indeed is, that the yellow sands of this royal river did actually once produce sufficient gold to make a magnificent crown and sceptre for the amiable hands of that patriot sovereign, the good king Denis.

A Dinner.—A dish of yellow-looking bacalhao, the worst supposable specimen of our saltings in Newfoundland; a platter of compact, black, greasy, dirty-looking rice; a pound, if so much, of poor half-fed meat; a certain proportion of hard-boiled beef, that has never seen the salting pan, having already yielded its nutritious qualities to a swinging tureen of Spartan soup, and now requiring the accompaniment of a satellite tongue, or friendly slice of Lamego bacon, to impait a dull relish to it; potatoes of leaden continuity; dumplings of adamantine contexture, that Carthaginian vinegar itself might fail to dissolve; with offensive vegetables, and something in a round shape, said to be imported from Holland, and called cheese, but more like the unyielding rock of flint in the tenacity of its impenetrable substance; a small quantity of very small wine; abundance of water; and an awful army of red ants, probably imported from the Brazils—the wood of which the chairs and tables are made, hurrying across the cloth with characteristic industry;—such are the principal features of the quiet family dinner-table of the Portuguese.

The Dockyard of Lisbon is scarcely as extensive as many of the largest of our private ship-builders on the banks of the Thames and the Avon.

Funerals.—In Portugal the corpse is placed in an open coffin, and the head and feet are left bare. A vessel filled with holy water is placed at the foot of the bier, which the priests and relatives of the deceased sprinkle on the body. The service being concluded, the corpse is followed by the relatives down into the vaults below the church, where vinegar and quick lime having been poured upon the body, the falling lid of the coffin is closed and locked, and the key delivered to the chief mourner, who proceeds immediately from the funeral, with his party of friends who have witnessed the interment take place, to the house of the defunct, where the key being left with the nearest relative, and the complimentary visit being paid, the rite is considered as terminated. No fire is lighted in the house of a deceased person upon the day of his funeral, and the relatives, who live in separate houses, are in the habit of supplying a ready-dressed dinner, under the supposition that the inmates are too much absorbed in grief to be equal to giving any orders for the preparation of food. During the course of the ensuing week, the chief mourners receive their several relatives and friends at tea. The assembly is sorrowful and dull. It has been asserted, though not corroborated, that such is the poverty and disregard of decorum on the part of the Portuguese government, that when a person dies without leaving behind sufficient to defray the expenses of his funeral, the dead body is laid on the pavement of the most public street, with a box upon the breast, into which passers-by drop copper or silver coin, until sufficient has thus been obtained to defray the expense of interment; and that a soldier stands at the head of the body to see that no money is abstracted; for, in Portugal, even the sacred purpose for which it is intended would not secure it without his protection.

There is no pardoning soi-disant liberaux, who prove, by their acts, the greatest enemies of the sacred dignity of liberty.

PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.

Decollatio, or beheading, was a military punishment among the Romans. In early times it was performed with an axe, and afterwards with a sword. It is worthy of remark, that in all countries where beheading and hanging are used as capital punishments, the former is always considered less ignominious. Thus, in England, beheading is the punishment of nobles, when commoners for the same crime are hanged. The crime of high treason is here punished with beheading. Commoners, however, are hanged before the head is cut off, and nobles also, unless the king remits that part of the punishment. In Prussia, formerly a nobleman could not be hanged; and if his crime was such that the law required this punishment, he was degraded before the execution. At present, hanging is not used in that country, and since so many instances have occurred of extreme suffering, on the part of the criminal, caused by the unskilfulness of the executioner in beheading with the sword, this mode of execution has been abolished. Beheading in Prussia is now always performed with a heavy axe, the sufferer being previously tied to a block. In France, during the revolutionary government, beheading by means of a machine, the guillotine, came into use, and still prevails there, to the exclusion of all other modes of capital punishment. A person who has murdered his father or mother, however, has his right arm cut off the moment before he is guillotined. In the middle ages, it was, in some states, the duty of the youngest magistrates to perform the executions with the sword. In China, it is well known that beheading is practised, sometimes accompanied with the most studied torments. In the United States of America, beheading is unknown, the halter being the only instrument of capital punishment. In many European countries, beheading with the sword still prevails.

P.

PRICE OF BLOOD.—WERE AND WERELADE.

Were, or Wera, in our old law books, signifies what was anciently paid for killing a man. When such crimes were punished with pecuniary mulets, not death, the price was set on every man's head, according to his condition and quality.

Werelade, among the Saxons, was the denying of a homicide on oath, in order to be quit of the fine, or forfeiture, called were. If the party denied the fact, he was to purge himself, by the oaths of several persons, according to his degree and quality. If the guilt amounted to four pounds, he was to have eighteen jurors on his father's side, and four on his mother's: if to twenty-four pounds, he was to have sixty jurors, and this was called werelade.

Weregild, or Weregeld, was the price of a man's head; which was paid partly to the king for the loss of his subject, partly to the lord whose vassal he was, and partly to the next of kin.

"In the same manner (says Blackstone,) by the Irish brehon law, in case of murder, the brehon or judge, compounded between the murderer and the friends of the deceased, who prosecuted him, by causing the malefactor to give unto them, or to the child or wife of him that was slain, a recompense, which they called eriach. And thus we find in our Saxon laws, particularly those of King Athelstan, the several weregilds for homicide, established in progressive order, from the death of the ceorl or peasant, up to that of the king himself."

The weregild of an archbishop, and of an earl, was 15,000 thrismas; that of a bishop or alderman, 8,000; that of a general or governor, 4,000; that of a priest or thane, 2,000; that of a king, 30,000; half to be paid to his kindred, and the other half to the public. The weregild of a ceorl was 266 thrismas.

P.T.W.

LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND.

The second great officer of the crown is the Lord High Chancellor, or Keeper of the Great Seal, which are the same in authority, power, and precedence. They are appointed by the King's delivery of the Great Seal to them, and by taking the oath of office. They differ only in this point, that the Lord Chancellor hath also letters patent, whereas the Lord Keeper hath none.

He is an officer of very great power; as no patents, writs, or grants, are valid, until he affixes the Great Seal thereto.

Among the many great prerogatives of his office, he has a power to judge, according to equity, conscience, and reason, where he finds the law of the land so defective as that the subject would be injured thereby.

He has power to collate to all ecclesiastical benefices in His Majesty's gift, rated under 20l. a year in the King's books.

In ancient times, this great office was most usually filled by an ecclesiastic. The first upon record after the Conquest, is Maurice, in 1067, who was afterward Bishop of London.