BOLL-FIGHTING IN SPAIN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 August 1918, Page 9

BOLL-FIGHTING IN SPAIN

- 8 WHY IT IS POPULAR. In spito of all that is heard to the contrary the people of Spain show no sign of becoming tired of bull-fighting (writes a correspondent of "Tho Times" from Sevillo). If it is not a 6port in our sense of the word it is a national show and entertainmont that no mere game, such as football, which is gaining in popularity in Spain every day, can hopo to rival. In spite of tho fact that it has become commercialised, and that in aristocratic and fashionable society it is rather looked down on, bull-fighting rcniuina the favourite amusement of tho people, and especially of tho country folk, who crowd into tho large towns m trainloads every Sunday from May to September to enjoy the spectacle, and criticise tho .performance of their favourite matadors. ;

Really, it is not difficult to understand the fascination of the bull fight. To the uninformed etranger it may simply apponr as ii elow, confused, and rather cruel scramble between bull, horses, and men; but to the instructed it is a dramatic entertainment, obeying laws as strict as those of tragedy, with all the spectacular effects of tho arena and amphitheatre combined. From tho pases de la cuadrila, when the glittering band of bullfiKhtere in all tho glory of gold and silver and blazing colour march across and saltito tho President, until tho gaily caparisoned mule-team drags out the carcass of the bull to an accompaniment of cracking whips and jingling bells, there is no minute of the twenty or thirty occupied by an average ' light which may not excite deep interest, emotion, or. critical appreciation. Outwardly it is, of course, all drama; but essentially also there is the tragic interest of the bull, who is tho centre and occasion of the whole pcifornmnco, and also tho predestined victim. Tho high trumpet-note which ie the signal for the. opening , of (ho toi'il nnd his rush into the glaring sunshine of tho ring sounds his doom; and although ho may bo cheered and applauded for his valour or good form, you 'linow that his doom is scaled and lhat nothing can save him. Whatever happens to his adversaries, he will not leave tho plaza alive; nnd tho knowledge adds a tragic interest to hie behaviour throughout tho threo act 6 of which tho lidia consists.

_ Thn Beriousness wil;h which Inill-fight-ing is taken in a country where few things matter at,all, and 'nothing mattors much, is shown by tho money invested in hull-breeding, by tho throngs that attend a bull fight, 07.000 or 18,flflO arc common audiences in Madrid or Seville), and by the amount of "literature" devoted to it, and the space occupied in tho newspapers by detailed criticisms. Six bulls are tho usual number killed at a modern bull fight; nnd as every minuto of every fight is described, two and n. half columns is not unusual space jo devoto to a newspaper criticism. It is the scientific, and not tho 6pcctacular, interest of the show which is resnonsible for this.