Spain's national sport.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue IX, 27 August 1898, Page 260

Spain's national sport.

T"be Revolting horrors of a TVladrid gull-figbt

The Spaniard will tell you that his national sport is seen to best advantage at Madrid, except, occasionally, at Seville. The reason of this is that bull fights are so costly that the manager of the show can only put on a firstclass production where he has a fair chance of getting his money back from an audience sufficiently numerous and ready to pay no trifling price for its excitement. No one, not even a Spaniard, could seriously say he went to a bull fight for amusement. The bull ring of Madrid stands a mile or so outside the city. It was

built in 1874, at a cost, it is said, of £BO,OOO. The style is Moorish. The building itself is like a gigantic circus, of which the ring has a diameter of altout seventy yards. This ring is surrounded by a heavy red painted wooden barrier, of a height of some sft., over which the minor performers vault out of the ring when pursued closely by the bid I. This feat is rendered even easier than it looks by a narrow bench which runs all round the barrier, placed at some two feet above the ground. There is accommodation, one is told, for 14,000 spectators. Prices of admission vary from about two shillings for a. seat on the granite steps, which form the first thirteen tiers of seats, beginning at the ring side, to 150 pesetas, or even more, for a box in the upper rows. Inasmuch as six bulls, each worth from £4O to .£OO, were killed during the afternoon, and about eighteen horses, probably worth, on an

average, about £3 apiece, and as the various bull fighters employed all receive for a single performance salaries that would content our own highlypaid music hall performers for a week, it is obvious that the expenses of the show must be enormous. Consequently, as at our own Italian ope: a, the better seats are offered for subscription at the beginning of the season. These are taken up so largely in Madrid, that a stranger has some difficulty in obtaining accommodation in the better positions. The performance was to begin at

4.30 p.m., bait for fully an hour before the ring’ was full of men, chiefly of the lower classes, who seemed to find an intense pleasure in treading the arena of the combats. A very indifferent brass band played circus music from time to time. As the hour of commencement approached the ring’ quickly cleared, while the circular rows of seats became in parts densely crowded. The frequenters, all respectably dressed in more or less English fashion, reminded one of the men one sees at the enclosed racecourses round London, save that there was no betting and no rowdiness or shouting.

There was a fair number of ladies present both of the upper and middle classes, but I was told that the attendance of the gentler sex had much diminished of late years, and that on the present occasion many had doubtless abstained from coming because of the war, and the news of certain Spanish defeats. This unpleasant sub-

jcct, however, seemed to be entirely shelved for a time.

Punctually at 4.30, to some very mild cheering, the various performers, in the traditional dresses, paraded according to the customary ritual. Each of the first two bulls took a whole halfhour to kill, nor did either fall until he had done to death three of the sad looking old horses that are ridden by the picadors. It is only this preliminary portion of the combat that it is really repulsive to watch. You may not appreciate the manoeuvres of the espada as he stands with his naked sword before the tired but still infuriated animal; at the same, time you cannot. but admire to some extent his undoubted pluck and agility. You are interested, though to a less extent, in the skill and dash with which the unarmed banderilleros circumvent the angry beast, and successfully plant their pairs of barbed darts into his

neck at the very moment of his charge. Even the gay-clad chulos who keep the bull moving, and skip nimbly out of the. way as he charges at their tantalising cloak, may be watched with interest, owing to the apparent danger they run, and the ready tricks by which they escape it. Hut the picador’s ‘business’ is truly revolting in its cruelty, as well as contemptible in many ways.

There are never more than two picadors in the ring at once. Each in turn engages the bull, after he has been teased a little by the chulos. Their miserable old horses are supposed to be blindfolded, but this is seldom the fact, as the picador has a habit of uncovering at least one eye. for fear the frightened animal should dash him blindly against the barirer. All he has to do is to tease the bull with his pretence lance. His sole duty seems to be the letting of his horse be killed bv the bull. There is

no horsemanship worth the watching. Often enough the rider makes little or no effort to avoid the bull’s onslaught. His own legs, thickly padded, run little danger from the terrible horns; he has merely to fall cleverly (and this is scarcely horsemanship) when his mount is lifted off the ground or overborne bv the bull.

The poor horse, long since broken out of shying, waits the assault calmly. It seems in no way to anticipate the awful attack so unprovokedly to be made upon it by the bull. Even when the bull actually charges, the horse seldom attempts to escape, and in a second of time he is gored in the flank or quarter to a depth of a foot or more of the bull’s horn. Sometimes the poor beast escapes for a while to receive a similar attack a few minutes later, some times he is fortunate enough to be killed outright. The bull, thrusting his horn deeper

and deeper to the very hilt, may reach a vital part, and overthrow the horse, who falls, and never moves again.

But this is not the worst; this is not nearly the worst. In the case just described the horse is simply killed outright. The spectacle is horrid to watch, no doubt, and so far as sport is concerned it would be equally sporting to see a led horse run over by a train. Sometimes —too often—the bull is not content to charge blindly at the horse’s side or hindquarters. Instead, he lowers his head, places it under the horse’s belly, and attempts to toss or lift steed and rider from the ground. In this he is seldom successful, but one ghastly consequence, that may be imagined but is too horrible to describe, is almost invariable. The revolting spectacle does not seem to strike the crowd of excited spectators as repulsive; they have seen it too often. It is fair, however, to ad.l that they resent by hisses the totter-

ing horse lieing mounted again, but this is generally done notwithstanding. As the horse has been definitely condemned to death, perhaps, after all, the quicker it dies the better. And so, hideous sight though it be, one need not regret its speedy return to its executioner’s horns. The bull himself dies a far more noble death than he would seem to deserve after his brutality to the unoffending horses. His torture is divided into three acts, the pricking by the mounted picadors coming first. Next, while the horses lie prone in the arena, he is set upon by the banderillos. Last of all comes the espada. to the weird sound of a shrill trumpet. His object is to kill the bull forthwith. There are various methods of doing this, but the fashionable one at present, which was used in every instance last Sunday, is to reach over the bull’s head as it lowers its horns to charge and then plunge the point of the long, straight sword into the nape of his neck. The first blow is seldom successful, the sword merely penetrating a. few inches. Occasionally it is thrust in to the very hilt; not uncommonly it is left sticking in the flesh, and has to be recoveied by one of the ehulos winding his cloak around the hilt.

After repeated assaults, the- bull’s legs at last refuse to bear its weight. The instant it sinks to the ground the eachetero, or dagger-man jumps into the arena, and severs the spinal eord with a vigorous stab of his short weapon. Then come on teams of horses or mules, yoked three abreast, who drag off the dead bodies in turn, the bull going last. Scarcely has the door closed behind his corpse than another bull flashes out into the arena from another entrance, and the picadors appear again mounted on two more condemned horses, doomed to lose their lives within the next ten minutes. The play is invariably gone through in the same order, and generally lasts for from a quarter to half an hour. The spectacle does not seem to become in any way monotonous to the Spaniard, who sits out the killing of six. or, on great occasions, ten bulls, without being satiated. Every Englishman you meet in Spain seems to have seen at least part of one bull-fight, and he generally tells you that he has no wish whatever to see any more. The ‘national sport’ of Spain does not strike him as being a sport at all. He declares he is too fond of horses to allow himself to watch them being slaughtered in so brutal a manner. And sport to the English mind also implies something of the nature of a fair contest. In the bull-fight the combat is even more onesided than it would appear to be from any description, however graphic. Last Sunday the spectacle continued for fully two hours without any hurt to the human performers, save perhaps bruises to the picadors, who were seven in number, according to the programme, and each of whom seemed to take his turn regularly until the end. There were a dozen banderilleros and chulos, all employed in the ring at once. Of espadas there were three, each of whom had consequently two bulls to kill. In appearance these highly-paid and muchadmired swordsmen suggested the trick-rider of a circus much more than an English athlete. In conclusion, there' can be no question but the spectacle of the slaughter of the horses is as degrading as it is disgusting. Yet Spanish ladies of the highest birth and education watch the' scene unmoved, if not with visible satisfaction. Originally an amateur sport, for the last 150 years bullfighting has been only practised by professional toreros, whoi have degraded the ancient fight to the present! brutal performance.—Wilfred Pollock. in the ‘Daily Mail.’