Comprachicos have left their traces in the penal laws of Spain and
England. You find here and there in the dark confusion of English laws
the impress of this horrible truth, like the foot-print of a savage in a
forest.

Comprachicos, the same as Comprapequeños, is a compound Spanish word
signifying Child-buyers.

The Comprachicos traded in children. They bought and sold them. They did
not steal them. The kidnapping of children is another branch of
industry. And what did they make of these children?

Monsters.

Why monsters?

To laugh at.

The populace must needs laugh, and kings too. The mountebank is wanted
in the streets, the jester at the Louvre. The one is called a Clown, the
other a Fool.

The efforts of man to procure himself pleasure are at times worthy of
the attention of the philosopher.

What are we sketching in these few preliminary pages? A chapter in the
most terrible of books; a book which might be entitled--_The farming of
the unhappy by the happy_.