15 FEBRUARY 1952, Page 12

"Elie )aiettator," Pbruarp 140, 1832.

THE ruffian-fanatic who wounded the Queen of Spain has been handed, stripped of his clerical character, to the arm of the penal law, and has been put to death. What may have been his motive—whether it was a speculative eye to favour which might be snatched from Fate at the hands of a Regent or a Montpensier party, a fanatic hatred of a Sovereign whose court had once some difference with the Pope, or the simple love of blood-stained mischief natural to some minds when brutalized does not yet come out. The event has passed away, as he has done. The Queen is recovering, and may be no worse for the attack. Its most lasting effect probably will be to invest her with a new interest in the eyes of her people.