MINCING COURAGE AT A BULL FIGHT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19240, 29 November 1930, Page 29 (Supplement)

MINCING COURAGE AT A BULL FIGHT.

INHUMAN SPORT SEEN AT WORST IN MEXICO. (By FREDERICK GRIFFIN.) Every visitor to Mexico has to see a, bull fight once, to get it out of his system. Once is usually enough to make him eay: “Never again.-’ My own first, and last corrida de toros made it impossible to eat dinner that evening. Not that the bull fight, so-called, is so bad —if only the bulls suffered. It isn’t so hard to watch, unless you have a salad soul. It has its moments of thrill, even though it is in the main merely a slowrootion abattoir act with ballet dance trimmings. To be precise, it’s not what the men do to the bulls that is the worst feature of the spectacle or what the tortured bulls fail to do to their baiters. It’s what the pain-maddened bulls do to the blindfolded horses —ah, that’s a form of “sport‘ K that makes a man lower his eyes and grind his teeth. If that be sport, then quartering should still be fashionable. No man who has ever known or loved horses—or has, as a youngster, felt the velvet muzzle or the silken neck, or looked into the soft eyes of this greatest* of all men’s animal pals, can watch what the bulls do to the horses in the Gran Plaza of Mexico City any Sunday, afternoon without wishing he were out there with a meat axe and a machine gun. I was warned in advance about the horses when I said that I was going to see a corrida. Even that did not prepare me for the full dose. It proved easy to attend this Mexican bull fight, alone. The taxi man who drove me to the booking office advised me to get a boletin de sombra, a ticket in the shade. I did, and found myself sitting for three dollars right in the front row of this round arena, capable of seating 20,000 people. Shortly I was surrounded, right, left’ and in tile rear by the higher grade fans, generals, politicals and other gentlemen of the ringside seat variety, and their ladies. Opposite on the bleacher side, full in the blazing sun, sat thousands of the Mexican populace, many in blue jeans as on week days. They whiled away the time noisily, pitching straw hats up and down the high, circular galleries. Certainly I had no reason to complain of my seat. From it the ring with its •wooden barrier, although nearly 500 feet wide, seemed small and intimate. The proceedings opened on a circus note that gave no hint of the blood to come. Entered the three matadors in their tight velvet, bespangled' jackets and tighter pants, and with black shoes light as dancing shoes oil their feet in which they strutted across the ring, saluting the populace who hailed them. Followed the bandilleros in line, and then the mounted picadores heavy fellows on the sorriest horses I have ever seen, gaunt creatures scarcely able to make their stiff legs work. Matadors Like Dancing Masters. If these Latin loi'ers of bull-fighting had a sense of humour, let alone a sense of sport, they would laugh out of the ring these padded picadores with their legs, sheathed in steel, sitting aloft with lances on their sorry steeds like grotesque descendants of Sancho Panza. Each horse had a red bandage over its left eye that gave the skinny beast a rascally, coquettish look. The import of these blinkers was soon to become evident. Behind these performers came a flock of white wings. These turned out to be exactly what they looked, the scavengers of this circus of blood, the moppers-up, would-be toreadors getting a thrill from shouting insults at the bull from a hornproof hole, gentlemen part of whose duty consisted of -pushing and prodding the moribund horses to the slaughter. Last of all, merrily, came teams of white horses, all jingling bells, draggingnothing but a chain with a hook. After the procession had bowed and saluted sufficiently the ring was suddenly empty except for a couple of toreros with scarlet capes. A bugle rang out, and before I was aware a black bull was in the ring and the show was on. The black fellow with a snort rushed at one of the men. The latter did not pause in the manner of hi 6 side-stepping. He side-stepped. For these bulls were no stall-fed sloths. I saw six of them enter the arena—and subsequently die—and there was not one of them that was not a snorting, pawing, shining, hardmuscled beast with horns like threatening lances. That is, when he entered. Quickly he was reduced to a trembling, pitiful, half-blind, befuddled animal, badgered into helplessness, bleeding from a dozen wounds that drained his heart. And at the last he was just carrion, to be dragged through the sand by the jingle-bell horses like a sack of salt. Thi6 game makes no pretence of treating a gallant, if dumb, enemy with honour. The bull once dead arouses no more sentiment than a defunct cat. After all, he had been doomed from the start. He was not meant to have a chance. But to resume the aetiou. After the bull has been robbed of its first fury by a couple of fast-footing toreros, a matador, unarmed save for a scarlet cloak, does some amazing weaving And twisting as he encourages the bull to rush at him, and, himself rigid, lets the thundering beast slide by him with mere inches to spare. His technique, while enabling him to avoid being gored, is in its finesse beyond me. But not over the heads of the crowd, who howl joyously after each successive passing. This part of the sport has a big kick, since the bull has a chance of scoring with his horns. There is every evidence of strain on the part of the matador, as with taut nervousness, but gracefully, he evades the bull's rushes by a split inch. Not that he is always successful. Twice during the afternoon, in this phase of the performance, did I see a matador tossed. without, however, apparent hurt. One fellow went clean up and over the horns. As he hit the ground he turned quickly over on his stomach and lay still, his hands protecting his head. The fool bull had scarcely begun to figure otit a way of goring or pawing the recumbent figure ■before toreros with flashing cloaks had distracted his attention sufficiently to let the matador get. up and resume. For always the bull, like the dumb one he was, went chasing these cloaks, expending his wind and his strength on these elusive rags insetead of going for the man who waved them. I could not help thinking that if some one could get

ifc into the thick heads of these baited creatures to go for the men instead, of the cloak, it would soon end bull fighting. I had another peculiar reaction worth noting. In spite of the skill and unquestioned courage of the matadors and the chances they ran of being hooked by the bulls, I had an essential male feeling that this affair was feminine in its implications. Those were not he-men out there like some beefy footballer or rugged boxer, ready to bore in and smash or be smashed, but finicky, primping, posturing triflers, dancing masters, wrist-flicking mannequins. The Sacrifice of the Horses. After this ballet part came the sacrifice of old horses about to die anyway, of steeds unfit for the poorest peddler's cart, yet not deserving an end, so pathetic as butting bags for maddened bulls. This sacrifice of the horses is not an incidental of this game, whose aim is to tire the bull until he is in a state of such near collapse that the final coup de grace may be given, close up, without undue risk. It is premeditated that the bull shall sink his horns into the horse, raise him and his rider and throw them. The aim of this maneouvre, of this gargantuan stabbing is to make the bull so strain the muscles of his neck by the passionate heft of so much horse flesh that thereafter he will keep his strained head hanging. The aim of the whole performance up to the final stroke appears to be to make the bull drop his horns in weariness and dejection so that he may be safely pierced through, behind the shoulder. Enter two miserable horses, their knees trembling beneath the weight of a stall-fed picador. The first of them, is pummelled and thrust, pushed and whacked by the white wings in the direction of the already bewildered bull, who yesterday lorded it in a pasture and to-day is tortured to make human beings laugh. The horse cannot see the bull because of the binding on his eyes, but he must smell or sense him, for he advances like an obstinate drunkard on his way to the police station. The bull, waiting viciously for the next torment, sees him. He shambles forward, snorting. He lowers his head and rushes. The’fat and clumsy picador trios to keep him back with his spear, and sticks him in. the shoulder. As well might he try to stop a motor car with; a fork. Thud! "Ugh! The bull hits the horse full in the chest or, more likely, catches him squarely underneath, since that is the object of the manoeuvre. Maybe he lifts him clean up and throws him and his stuffed rider. Ah, that is good. The crowd appreciates. Maybe he only jabs him once, twice, thrice, with short, hard upward stabs from horns that pierce like bayonets. It is not possible to describe what one sees fully. It is foul, inhuman. One cannot look. A red nausea makes the senses squirm, but a horrible fascination keeps dra wing the eyes. The circus opening gave no hint of such cruelties. The crowd exults. The crowd lauglisi and jibes at a picador who is hesitant or ciumsy or who, thrown, scrambles with little dignity over the barricade to safety. The crowd thunders when the white wings try to drag and flog a stricken horse to its feet for further woundings. Talk about the Roman mob and Christians to the lions. You suddenly think that the Nero days could have had nothing worse than these flippant thousands in fiesta mood who laugh as old horses are gored into cheap meat for dogs to eat. Enough of horror! Follows an other ballet act, graceful, beautiful and brave, when three -bandilleios in succession each plant a pair of beribboned barbs into the rushing bull’s shoulders. The bandillero stands in the middle of the ring, rising on his toes to his fulllest height, raising and lowering his coloured darts to the hesitant bull, fixing him. At last the bandillero swoops forward, the bull comes towards him. As they meet, the man halfcircles, escapes the horns by a seeming miracle, plunges the barbs abreast into the bull’s neck at the shoulders, and sweeps away unharmed while the bull plunges on and the crowd thunders. The Execution t>y the Matador. Two bandilleros repeat the act with precise timing and aim. Only once or twice does a barb fail to stick. Usually the bull ends up with six gaily-trimmed harpoons hanging from his shoulders, which are red with his running blood. Follows a few more manoeuvres by cloak-carrying toreros, and then comes the finale," the execution, by the matador. But first he must go through the motions preliminary to killing. He stands practically still, weaving a scarlet cloth, brushing the bull’s nose and compelling the tired brute to circle around him. So tired is the bull, pumping blood from a dozen shoulder stabs, that sometimes he stumbles, as, fool that he is, he goes round and round after the red cloth, now'- damp with his own blood, which it soaks up as it sweeps over his shoulders. Again, due to ignorance of the technique, I am unable to describe the spitball curves and the rest of the tricky stuff that tlie matador puts on his delivery, but evidently he does it all to the crowd’s taste, for the amphitheatre roars en masse at his artistic convolutions. Indeed, the easy mastery and grace of his juggling with the stumbling bull is marvellous. Comes a moment when he gets the bull where he wants him. The animal’s' feet are evidently just right, and his head at the correct elevation for the final stroke. In front of him stands the statuesque matador. He lifts his long rapier-like blade to the level of his shoulder, arm outstretched, and sights along it. For a moment he stands lithely before the bull, who has.evidently lost all interest in the ceremony. Then, with a dart, he makes a gliding leap and strikes, burying the blade to the hilt just behind the shoulder, if he has aimed truly, and at the same time diverting the bull’s final plunge from himself by pulling the cloth over its eyes, as he leaps aside. The skill and strength displayed in driving the long blade downward towards the bull’s heart was in several cases most consummate, but I watched one matador try six times before he finally drove the estocada home, each time inflicting a further woiand—as tragic an exhibition of clumsiness and cruelty ** I ever wish to see, hoping as I did that each stroke would be the suffering brute’s last. The bull sometimes topples over, kicks and <?ies a moment or two after receiving the estocada., but not usually. He just stands with the long blade buried two feet in his body. Then the matador bends over, and with a short, hard stroke with a short knife stabs him right behind the horns at the base of the brain, and he flops over instantly, dead, to be dragged out, almost before he has ceased quivering, hv the circus horses with their tinkling bells, while white wings rush in to scrape the blood from the sand and make the place pleasant again for the uext joust. _ (A.A.N.S. Copyright),