Another attempt to assassinate a king,—as usual a failure,— was
made on Tuesday in Madrid. King Alfonso was driving the Queen himself in a phaeton at 5.30 p.m., when, as he turned into one of the palace gates, a young man fired a pistol twice, once at him and once, it is believed, at the Queen, the second bullet passing close by her cheek. Neither King nor Queen was hurt, but the attempt was a real one, as the bullets were found, and a groom who sat behind was grazed. The assassin was at once arrested, and proved to be a young confectioner, named Ortero Gonzalez, who may have been an agent of some secret society, but who as yet seems rather to be an ignorant man, out of temper with his position, and for a political assassin, unusually bad. At least, it is officially declared that he accused his master and another man of being his accomplices, and when no evidence had been found to criminate them, ad- mitted that he had tried to ruin them out of personal hatred. He "had hesitated between an assassination and a suicide." The attempt has produced an explosion of feeling for the King in Madrid, but it is principally among the upper classes, and all the signs of coming trouble in Spain are now present. The Ministry is persecuting, the Opposition is abstaining, the Generals are consulting, and the populace is uneasy and dis- turbed. Observers in Madrid say there is revolution in the air, though the people have no special, or at all events no new grievance. The Cortes are, no doubt, packed, but so they always have been ; there is no particular distress, and the Liberals are putting forward no special demands, except for more honorific treatment in the Legislature.
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