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We were told subsequently, at Madrid, that an attempt to suppress the bull-fights in Spain would be more likely to lead to a revolution than would the most stringent political measure that could be named. The cry of the mob is "Bread and bulls," which is very significant to those who have studied Spanish character.
Your Waterloo, and battles of the Nile and Baltic, what are they, in sober fact, but gladiatorial murder-games on a great scale, human imitations of bull-fights, at which Satan sits as grand alguazil and master of ceremonies?
"Elias will not die, Elias will be the leader when Capitan Pablo fails, satisfied in his revenge," concluded the old man, as he accompanied the youth out of the cave into the open air. The Cockpit To keep holy the afternoon of the Sabbath one generally goes to the cockpit in the Philippines, just as to the bull-fights in Spain.
Were not these amusements of the Netherlanders as elevated and humanizing as the contemporary bull-fights and autos-da-fe of Spain? What place in history does the gloomy bigot merit who, for the love of Christ, converted all these gay cities into shambles, and changed the glittering processions of their Land jewels into fettered marches to the scaffold?
Madrid is worth visiting not for its bull-fights, which are disgusting proofs of man's natural brutality, but for its picture gallery. No one knows what Velasquez could do, or has done, till he has seen Madrid; and Charles V. was practically master of Europe when the collection was in his hands.
He adores bull-fights, and rather regrets the Inquisition, and considers the Duke of Alva everything noble and chivalrous, and the most abused of men. It would do your heart good to hear his invocations to that deeply injured shade, and his denunciations of the ignorant and vulgar protestants who have defamed him. You can imagine the rest. Dear me!
Is this the "Paris of Central America," with its 70,000 inhabitants? Mrs. Steele is met in the dépot by some friends, Californians, who live here part of the year. We promise to dine with them, and the Baron comes back from his search for a carriage, saying one will be here presently. "Vhile Madame Steele talks vidth her friends, vill you come zee dthe Trocadero, vhere dthey haf bull-fights?"
But you have bought those cambrics by the piece, and also pinas, thin, gossamer fabrics, of all degrees of color and beauty, sometimes with pattern flounces, do you hear? And you have bought Spanish table-cloths with red or blue edges, with bull-fights on them, and balloon-ascensions, and platoons of soldiery in review, and with bull-fighting and ballooning napkins to match.
"As Panem et Circenses was the cry Among the Roman populace of old, So Pan y Toros is the cry in Spain." It is a tradition which has passed into their national existence. They received it from nowhere. They have transmitted it nowhither except to their own colonies. In late years an effort has been made to transplant it, but with small success. There were a few bull-fights four years ago at Havre.
Neither are the bull-fights, as managed in Spain, practised here, probably from the effects of the climate on the men, who would not much relish a combat with one of the small, but spirited and powerfully shaped bulls of the country.
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