BULL FIGHTING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 152, 30 June 1932, Page 8

BULL FIGHTING

ODDITIES RECORDED There are many instances recorded of unusual incidents at bullfights in Spain, and Latin America. Rarely does the bull escape in his encounters with the sharp thrust of the picador’s lance, the sizzling stab of the fire darts, and, finally, the swift lunge of the mata- 1 dor’s sword, but frequently the animal does much damage to the pride and person of his tormentors. In Puebla, Mexico, recently, a bull leaped the fence surrounding the arena, and charged into the stands filled with spectators, doing injury to many before it was killed by shots from an army officer’s revolver. The officer was arrested, however, for “using his revolver without, due regard to the safety of the crowd.” Sidney Franklin, an American policeman’s son, who has achieved fame as a bull-fighter in Spain and LatinAmerica, was gored by a bull after it had been left dying from a thrust to the hilt of Franklin’s sword. In Madrid recently a bull, In a dying convulsion, flung the sword back out. of its shoulder through the breast of a spectator. Senorita Montalvan, a distinguished Mexican actress, once felt the urge to turn bull-fighter. A bull tossed, her a dozen feet; her male pianist seized the fallen sword and thrust it through the, beast’s heart.

The code governing bull-fighters is the result of group organisation. In Spain there is an Association of Matadores and the lesser lights of the bull ring have a subsidiary organisation. Even the monos sabios (wise monkeys), whose duty it is to plug up, first-aid fashion, the abdominal punctures of the mounts of picadores, have their fraternal organisation.

Agitation in Spain during the regime of l.’rimo de Ttivera prompted the dictator to forbid the use of burning darts at bull-fights, and new regulations isSued at that time provided for padded coats for the horses, to “ humanise ’* the amusement. The rules were relaxed very soon thereafter by King AJfonso, to whom the afieonados appealed. Tn Mexico, the horses are required to be protected from the horns of the bull by leather coats.