The Spaniards are mismanaging their little war with the Moors
of the Riff. The Government has strengthened its .garrison at Melilla until the troops can hardly be accom- modated; but the General in command fails to drive back the tribesmen who swarm between the town and the exterior forts, and cause constant loss when the forts are provisioned. The Spaniards dare not enter the mountains, and the whole affair is being reduced to a guerilla war, which is very ex- pensive, and provokes the people of Spain beyond bearing. They desire a quick assertion of their superiority, and the Government, to satisfy them, threatens a war with Morocco itself, and has resorted to the extraordinary step of calling out its Reserves, ninety thousand men. At the same time, it has opened a national subscription to defray the cost of war, to which the people respond with patriotic liberality, but which, of course, produces no fund of any importance to a campaign. A squadron of small armed vessels has been sent to patrol the coast, and there is talk of seizing Tetuan, or even Tangier, which would be sure to produce international com- plications.
