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Updated: June 7, 2025
When the animal is worked into an uncontrollable frenzy, the horsemen withdraw, and the matadores literally murderers enter, armed with knives having blades twelve or eighteen inches long, and sharp. The trick is to dodge an attack from the animal and stab him to the heart as he passes.
I may say that the sport is, in my opinion, a most barbarous one, and likely to operate unfavourably on the national morals; the arena is sometimes drenched in the blood of bulls, horses, and even of the unfortunate picadores and matadores, whose sole defence is the red rag with which they irritate the bull.
El Tigre headed the squad, followed by two junior matadores, three banderilleros, three capadores, and two mounted picadores, while at the rear of the column came two teams of little, half-wild, prancing, dancing Spanish mules, one team black, the other white, each composed of three mules harnessed abreast as for a chariot race, but dragging behind them nothing but a heavy double tree, to which the dead of the day's fight might be attached and dragged out of the arena.
The matadores of the society were of opinion that I should be conciliated by every possible means, and it was arranged that the Archbishop should pay me a visit at Saint Joseph's, on the earliest possible occasion, to exculpate his virtuous colleagues and make me accept his disclaimers. He came, in effect, the following week.
It is of no use to say "Soo-bossy," or to give him a charge of No. 6; neither is it well to run. If the matadores had any of the sensations which I have experienced, the gate receipts at the bull-rings would have to go up. When a big long-horn fastens a quail-shooter with his great open brown eye in a chaparral thicket, you are not inclined to "call his hand."
The matadores of the society were of opinion that I should be conciliated by every possible means, and it was arranged that the Archbishop should pay me a visit at Saint Joseph's, on the earliest possible occasion, to exculpate his virtuous colleagues and make me accept his disclaimers. He came, in effect, the following week.
They wanted the quarrel fought out on their own streets. Business took a secondary place. Men fingered weapons and dreamed of blood, until the temper of the town was as boisterous and vehement as the temper of the amphitheatre when impatiently waiting for the bulls and the matadores. Nor was it possible for Antonia to lock the door upon this pervading spirit.
"Suddenly, the martial note of a bugle cleaves the hum and murmur clear the ring! "They clear it. The great gate is flung open, and the procession marches in, splendidly costumed and glittering: the marshals of the day, then the picadores on horseback, then the matadores on foot, each surrounded by his quadrille of chulos. They march to the box of the city fathers, and formally salute.
The banderilleros and chulos, who took part in the combat on foot, were fine looking, active young fellows; and the matadores, who performed the final act of killing the bull single-handed, were as a rule older and more experienced men. It must be a practiced hand that gives the last thrust to the many-times wounded and nearly exhausted creature, who will always fight to the very last gasp.
The poor creature is but a sorry victim for the fresh, well-armed, practiced butcher, who comes to give him the finishing stroke. We would emphasize the remark that the whole game of the bull-ring is, on the part of the chulos, picadores, and matadores, a shameful exhibition not only of the most disgraceful cruelty but also of consummate cowardice.
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