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Globe, Volume II, Issue 141, 14 November 1874, Page 4

The correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette gives a pitiable account of the general state of Spain. He says the confiscation of the property of those who have joined Don Carlos is being carried out all over Spain; numerous arrests are being made, and all Oarlist newspapers are repressed. The disastrous and inconvenient effects of the war are spreading and making themselves felt even to the gates of Madrid. The trains from Navarre, Arragon, and Valencia are frequently delayed, and bands of Carlists under enterprising chiefs rove the districts bordering on the province of Madrid, levying contributions, carrying off the conscripts destined for the new Government levy, tearing up rails, burning down stations, and destroying telegraph wires. Numbers of volunteers from towns in the neighbourhood have taken refuge in Madrid, and a general feeling of insecurity pervades the country. Although the triumph of Don Carlos is universally regarded as impossible, a long and ruinous civil war is considered certain. A sharp contest has for some time been raging round the little town of Paycerda, which lies on the spurs of the Pyrenees. Balls from the Carlists guns have crossed the boundary. The French Minister of War has ordered a body of artillery to the spot, and a battalion of infantry was placed under arms to prevent the violation of territory. The Carlists thereupon drew back their line of skirmishers, and regulated their fire within the pxescrihed limits. The town has made a gallant defence. The Carlists have made repeated assaults, one leader after

another having been repulsed. The fighting was of a desperate character. We hear of women again playing the part of the Maid of Saragossa, an ! filling the breaches in the walls with sacks of earth regardless of the enemy’s fire. There are the usual stories of Carlist atrocities. It is said the dead were burnt in an hotel which stands near the town, and that a paralysed woman was left to perish in the flames. A still worse story comes from Callahorra, which was lately occupied. According to a despatch from Madrid, the Carlists on entering the town disarmed the garrison, took the commandant prisoner, sacked private houses and the tobacco depot, compelled the clergy of the cathedral to pay them a large sum, shot four volunteers and the customs’ officers, set all the convicts at liberty, burnt the railway station, and, amongst other atrocities, placed gunpowder in the mouth of another unfortunate volunteer, and then fired it.