There are found, even where we have the best civilization, some degraded
classes who delight in cruel, bloody sports, in witnessing scenes
most revolting to persons of humane feelings and better culture. But
desperadoes, pugilists, and other fighting men, with those who have a
fiendish satisfaction in the sufferings and blood of the dumb animals
they torture, are counted alien from our Christian civilization. Their
characters and their crimes are detested by all good citizens. But when
deeds of cruelty and blood are not only endured and condoned, but raised
to the dignity of national sports, it shows a state of society that can
hardly be called civilized. Ancient Rome had her gladiatorial shows for
the gratification of those eager to witness the bloody spectacle. The
tournaments of chivalrous knights in the mediæval times, who slew each
other as an exhibition of their strength and skill, were of the same
character. In Spain and Portugal even to the present day bull fights are
a national amusement, in which nearly all classes find pleasure. Our
attention is just now called to this. A suggestive note from a gentleman
of culture and refined sensibilities, says: “A king of Spain brought home
a young wife, whose first duty was to give the signal for the beginning
of a bull fight. The same monarch is visited by a German prince, in whose
honor these brutalities are perpetrated on a more magnificent scale than
usual.” And so it is. Alas for European civilization in the nineteenth
century!
The preparation for these sports is extensive. The ring is of vast
dimensions, in the center of which is a pit, or wide area, sunk in
terraced granite, with galleries rising on all sides, sufficient to seat
at least ten thousand people who usually crowd the place on Sabbath
afternoon. The fighters and their assistants are trained to their
business, and handle their weapons skillfully. Some are mounted on horses
with long slender spears, used simply to torture and exasperate, but to
inflict no deadly wound. The “killer” is a swordsman on foot, who baffles
and confuses the bull, drawing his attention this way and that, playing
his red cloak before his eyes, and watching his opportunity to plunge
the sword to the hilt into the neck of the animal. They are well paid,
and often amass large fortunes. But no verbal account of a bull tourney
can present the rapid changes, the dangers and escapes, the skill, the
picturesqueness, and the horror of the actual thing. The acts, brilliant
or repulsive, occur in rapid succession, presenting only glimpses of
dramatic, ghastly pictures, which fade out instantly to re-form in new
phases. The poor, gaunt, dilapidated horses used are a cheap contribution
to the occasion, and forced into position to be killed by the horns of
the bull, as he, in turn, is doomed to die by the sword of the killer,
with not the slightest chance to survive the bloody fray. A fierce,
powerful bull has been known to kill five horses in ten minutes. The
first rush against a horse is a sight horrible to witness. You hear the
horns tearing the tough hide, crashing the ribs, dragging the entrails
from the quivering body. When two or more of the poor animals are
struggling on the earth in the ring, now reeking with blood, others, with
bandaged eyes, and hideously gashed sides, are spurred and goaded on to a
similar fate. A witness tells of seeing “a horse and rider lifted bodily
on the horns, and so tossed that the horseman was flung from his saddle,
hurtled over the bull, and landed solidly on his back, senseless.” The
grooms bore him off white and rigid, but the eager spectators heeded
him not. They were wildly cheering the bull’s strength and prowess.
Occasionally a man is horribly mangled, killed in the ring, or maimed for
life; so a surgeon attends in the ante-room, and (alas! the mockery,) a
priest is at hand, with his holy wafer for the last sacrament in case of
any accident to a good bull-fighting Catholic. Yet things so unutterably
repulsive are witnessed with apparent delight by richly dressed Spanish
gentlemen and ladies of the highest rank.
The performance, as at present maintained, is far below that of
other days, when the nation had more vigor. The dumb animals are, by
arrangements in the ring, put to a much greater disadvantage, and the
necessity for great dexterity and courage no longer existing, the class
of fighting men do not, in these respects, compare well with their
predecessors.
Spain, once a powerful nation, having a class—not numerous—of highly
cultivated citizens, and a literature by no means despicable, has
fallen into a sad condition, neither respected nor feared as formerly.
The brutal sports in which she delights could never be introduced or
tolerated in really refined society, or by cultured people, but when
retained as a relic of earlier barbarism they have an educating force,
and nurture to still greater strength the evil passions that made
them possible. Some things among us may have a dissipating, if not
demoralizing, tendency, and should be abandoned. Our voice is not against
all amusements. Innocent recreations are healthy. Our minds and bodies
need them. Only let them be suitable, and of an elevating tendency.