A Modern Spanish Bull-Fight.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 12, 26 January 1870, Page 2

A Modern Spanish Bull-Fight.

The following excellent description of a modern Spanish bull-fight is from a correspondent of the Pull Mall Gazette: -

We were excellently placed, in a box on the shady side, not far from that of the president. The " house" was pretty well filled befoie we arrived, bo wo emerged from the. comparative darkness of the corridor upon the exhilarating sight of muny thousands of men and women, row above row, under a sky of the most delicate blue, and all irradiated by the declining afternoon sun. This is a famous effect—quite " classical," the descriptive gentlemen say, and certainly very impressive, whether or not. The crowds, however, are not picturesque now-a-days, when Spanish men and Spanish women dress as they might do in Tottenham-court-road. So, while the shock of the numbers maintained a certain elevation in one's spirits, a longer and closer gaze gradually reduced the sensation to prose—strong prose, for a mass of persons is always an emotional sight, but still something short of poetry. j The bulk of spectators, there was no denying, had a counter-jumper look, and behaved exceedingly like our honest British counter-jumpeis when out upon "aspree." They yelled, they pelted each other with orange peel (the living tree is " romantic," but 1 think the peel is much the same everywhere !) and with dirty white powder. Some " ladies" of a pretty extensive range of personal acquaintance who entered a box were pretty freely " chaffed," but it glanced harmlessly off their paint, when it was not parried by their fans. However, though there were far more male than female lookers-on, there was no lack of decent bourgeoises, in lace veils or modish bonnets, who had come to see the performance. Everybody knows that there is a procession, and. how the president flings down the key of the toril, and so forth. Jt was j lucky that I had not expected to see a i bull fight of the " Childe Harold" type, when—

'' Hushed is the din of tongueß: on gallant ' steeds, With milk-white creat, golden spur, and lightpoised lanee, Four cavaliers prepared for venturous deeds"— I for the unlucky " .steeds" were dismal ! screws blindfolded, being bought cheap, on I purpose to be killed. The " cavaliers" were stout fellows, amply protected by iron, wearing leggings lined with thick . paper, and armed witli heavy oaken lances, fifteen feet lung, with a strong, keen point. When these had taken their places, with the" capeadores, or cloakinen, ready in the ring to help them, the door of the chiquero —just opposite me—was opened, and out came " Bull No. 1." If a bull is too fierce now-a-days, he is "got at," like a Derby, favourite, and slyly damaged. But in nine cases out of ten, an Englishman would be disappointed in the wildness of the bull. He comes on the arena with a puzzled look, and takes no action until he has been teased a little. One light-footed capeadore trails a cloak for him, and as he runs at it another lures him away, and so on. But he is sure to go at the picador before long, and then heaven help—the uulucky screw ! I suppose picadors do wonderful things sometimes, but what I saw myself—the regular and average performance—was their judiciously exposing the screw to the bull's horns. They prodded the bull meanwhile on the shoulders, and he was soon smeared with blood. But the real "fun" of the tight evidently began witli the goring of the first horse. The mere weight of the bull insures that, and we soon saw a horse and man go over before one charge. Then came more cloakplay, and another horse gored ; arid the inevitable details followed. These ought to be mentioned, because they are of the essence of the " sport"—not ugly accidents of it, but necessary accompaniments. That is to say— * * * To borrow Homer's language, " the guts gushed groundward." When the horse, even in this plight, could keep his legs, he was expected to go on performing, while his entrails trailed like I a bunch of ribbons. If he fell, he lay, I whether dead or half-dead, until the bull ! was killed. Sometimes an exhausted bull i fell upon him as he lay dying, and gored i him again. I noticed that this incident ! was always thought amusing, and I overj heard a respectable-looking old Spaniard behind me any to his friend that the bull was taking a " revista"—meaning that- he I was revising and improving the first edition I of his work ! The respectable bourgeoises ■ were no more shocked than their English.

It was all the same whether the horse was beateu when he fell, or Whether he had

strength enough to lise—whether he > lay kicking in his own blood on the sand, was cantered about, streaky with gore, or was brought in to be used again, after having had his skin stitehed.

It is to be observed, then, that in these so-callod " fights" the torture and death of the horses is as much a part of the show as the killing of the bull. They are not

wounded and slain, according to tune of the tight, as in real war ; nl^Joes

any skill of the picadors affect their destiny. People come to see them butchered as a part of the pleasure ; and if a fair proportion of them is not butchered, the spectators howl for more. Our third bull, on the day in question—-a black one—hud

shown more than ordinary vivacity, and

the supply of horses had run short. Soon a steady roar for caballos arose from the crowd, and thousands of voices were di-

rected to the box of the president. Fellows

jumped up on the stone seats of the ten•tido, and yelled furiously at that officer.

Their shout—r-" Senor Presidente, no lo entende usted !" (Mr President, you do not understand it!) —became a song ; and the

words " Presidente

no ]o entende''

rose and fell regularly ; while the singers

gesticulated with their arms, danced on the seats, and foamed at the mouth. Presently the chief espana—Gordito it was—appeared in front of the box, cap in hand ;

some arrangements were made, and other

caballos appeared. On these occasions, those who have the management of a bullfight niay seize the first horses they find in the neighbourhood—paying for them—whether their owners say yea or nay. This

license prevails all through the show. Fot instance, at the show of which I am speaking, a Spanish sailor, whenever the performance grew slack, sprang on his seat and danced the cancan with a brutality of suggestive gesture wholly indescribable.

The vast space, I need not say, rang with applause and laughter. The prettiest, indeed the only artistically graceful part of the bull-light I found to be the cloak-play. Some of the manoeuvres of the capeadores as they flared the colour in the face of the bull, and skimped away from him, had the ease of the best dancing. It was pretty, too, to see Gordito seat himself, as he once did, in the centre of the arena on a chair, and elude the bull's direct charge at him. lie is a stout fellow (thence his name), and looked .like a well-fed London footman in full dress, with the addition of a fancy jacket; but no dancing-girl ever turned so nimbly as he did at the critical moment. So, too, the light-footed, clean-limbed banderillos dancing up to plant the coloured darts into the wearied but still savage beast presented gleams of brilliance thai threw over the i scene an air of art.

But then those features of the business are scanty, whereas the carnage and the brutality are long, tedious, and altogether predominant. This is the answer to those who dwell on the " effects," which are the occasional, to the exclusion of the stupid cruelty which is the essential and permanent distinction of the bull-fight. Thus, how often have we heard of the espada in his final duel with the bull (the last act of the drama) destroying him with one subtle thrust in a vital part! Your descriptive gentleman dwells on this feat, but he does not say how often it is achieved—say in a whole summer's bull-fights throughout Spain. I may have been exceptionally unlueky, but not one of the six bulls that I saw die "(I did not wait to see the catastrophe of the seventh) was killed by any such legerdemain of butchery ; they were stabbed, ineffectually, over and over again, the swoz-d being left sticking in the animals as they got asvay at intervals. Finally, overpowered by long torture, and driven round the inside of the barriers, they sauk by degrees, and were put an end to with downright poniard stabs (punaldas). The result would have been arrived at as well, only more mercifully, at Sraithfield. . I will not make a sermon upon my story —the story is the sermon. It may be true, as Ford seems to think, that the Spaniards are cruel, independent of this amusement,'*-' which is an effect, not a cause. But, at least, its contiuuance is a perpetual stimulus to their cruelty, and one cause more for their sad backwardness in all the ele- »- ments of high civilisation. 4ttftt-