Source: Almanaque de Ferrol, Year 1908, page 25
Author: Eduardo Freire Canosa
(University of Toronto Alumnus)
Source: Almanaque de Ferrol, Year 1908, page 25
According to figures compiled by the General Directorate of the Spanish Geographical and Statistical Institute, the city of Ferrol had 23, 769 inhabitants as of December 31, 1900 (Almanaque de Ferrol [ADF]. Year 1907, page 18). This number amounted to about half the peak population attained by Ferrol toward the end of the eighteenth century: 45-48 thousand Ferrolians.
Ferrol laboured under a severe unemployment "crisis" in 1906. This circumstance did not obviate the celebration of Carnival or of a concurrent "grandiose" masquerade ball at Navy Command Headquarters on February 23, 1906, where, writes the ADF chronicler, "the aristocratic elegance of the eighteenth century was brought back to life...under the hexing magic chivalry of the house's tenants" (photograph on the right: start of the minuet).
Rumour spread in the month of March that the Zamora Regiment (photograph on the left) would be removed from Ferrol. This harbinger of "a new distress" for the city roused every social class, even the "depressed" and "misery-ridden" households. According to the ADF chronicler, everyone rallied to the regiment's defence and Town Hall promptly found new barracks for the troops.
Town Hall convened "good Ferrolians" from March 2 forward to "launch an active campaign against the workingman's crisis." The municipal campaign created commissions to look after the public works required for the harbour, the railway, the municipality, a new garrison, the conveyance of drinking water to the city, the demolition of outdated bulwarks, the building of schools. These rookie commissions met enthusiastically throughtout the month; they discussed, proposed and submitted "enlightening reports" on all these issues. However, despite the hustle and bustle or the commissions' ambition and vigor, nothing in fact materialized, "not even one item of that program that can be called the lengthy checklist of an ambitious lottery propitious to Ferrol."
In April a "Holy Mission" of two Jesuit missionaries arrived during the first week. The "Reverend Fathers" preached in the parish church of San Julián (cf. the "Holy Mission" of 1960, described in the RELIGION section of Chapter 12, "Bazan Magazine for the Year 1960," of the homepage, "When I Was A Child In Ferrol, Spain"). They put up with some "mild" anti-clerical heckles by "a few," but everything was ultimately forgiven in the "solemn and moving function" of April 8.
On September 20 the launching ceremony of the cruiser Reina Regente's hull at 2:00 PM cheered Ferrol briefly. The original drafts for this ship had first seen the light more than ten years back.
"The launch of the Regente is the last record stamped on the Shipyard's registry," writes the ADF chronicler, "...may that page's blank space be soon filled up...this is not the exclusive longing of Ferrolians, for the chronicle of military factories has always been...a reflection of the prosperity or misfortune of the Spanish kingdom."
After the festivities coeval with the launch finished, and the warship was formally transferred to the Arsenal for the furbishing of its deck and the mounting of its guns, a bitter apprehension—a dread of the future—descended over the city, and its streets fell silent once more. No doubt many Ferrolians remembered having been told or having heard as children that "in the dour days of 1815 the people had died of hunger even as the authorities withheld fifty-eight months of back pay."
Acronyms of newspapers or other publications cited by this work
Colorization of B/W photographs
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