It is a lamentable fact, that pure and uncorrupt justice has never
existed in Spain, as far at least as record will allow us to judge;
not that the principles of justice have been less understood there
than in other countries, but because the entire system of
justiciary administration has ever been shamelessly profligate and
vile.
Spanish justice has invariably been a mockery, a thing to be bought
and sold, terrible only to the feeble and innocent, and an
instrument of cruelty and avarice.
The tremendous satires of Le Sage upon Spanish corregidors and
alguazils are true, even at the present day, and the most notorious
offenders can generally escape, if able to administer sufficient
bribes to the ministers (40) of what is misnamed justice.
The reader, whilst perusing the following extracts from the laws
framed against the Gitanos, will be filled with wonder that the
Gypsy sect still exists in Spain, contrary to the declared will of
the sovereign and the nation, so often repeated during a period of
three hundred years; yet such is the fact, and it can only be
accounted for on the ground of corruption.
It was notorious that the Gitanos had powerful friends and
favourers in every district, who sanctioned and encouraged them in
their Gypsy practices.
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