INCIDENTS OF A MADRID SABBATH.

Southland Times, Issue 1127, 10 September 1869, Page 2

INCIDENTS OF A MADRID SABBATH.

The Madrid correspondent of the ' Timts ' writes : — The bull fight is necessarily a summer amusement ; the ring is usually closed between October and April. Just at this peculiar transitional season the attendance is at its height. On the whole, whatever may be said of the cruelty and stupidity of the entertainment, there is something amazing and almost amusing in the terrible interest the population takes in this their national sport. Prom the Puerta del Sol to the ring there is hardly a mile's distance, yet, of the whole mass of people flocking tothe spoton a Sunday afternoon, hardly one-third walk. From some dingy j coach office in the upper part of the town hundreds of huge lumbering omnibuses, freighted with whole cargoes of men, women, and children, and drawn by teams of three or five mules, with tinkling bells, keep running for hours down the broad Alcala thoroughfare. There is something very peculiar about the manner of Spanish driving. Besides the coahmanon the box, there is invariably a groom or hostler on foot, scampering after the loosely harnessed cattle, now on the near, now on the off side, lashing the

poor, jaded brutes with the thong, and more often with the stick of his heavy whip, and scaring them with the wildest and most unearthly yells that ever issued out of Red Indian's throat. Imagine scores upon scores of theae unwieldy machines , rumbling and tumbling down one v ojf^> the most villianously uneven pavemeiitSthat was ever endured in a half-civilised place — =• imagine the dust and the noise ; the terror of the less fortunate multitude as they hurry on foot along .and across the way, bound to the same goal, and the shouts o£ the still less happy rabble, more ragged and still more noisy, as they cheer on the triumphant vehicles to the goal fmm which they are themselves debarred — imagine a whole town ruu mad, you know not what about, and you will have some idea of the aspect Madrid wears in fine weather on most Sunday afternoons, of the aspect it specially wore on a recent afternoon, as the munificence of the " Ladies of Honor and Merit," by supplying crests and rosettes for the bulls, gave t'io " Function" in the ring a more than ordinary zest for the occasiou. The very beggars at the street corners seemed to participate in the general exultation ; their habitual whine was heightened to a note of gladness, and their beseeching hands were waved almost with a greeting gesture. The beggars themselves, however, and the rabble next door to them, though they can buy no admittance to the bull fight, have their own share of its pleasures. They assemble in swarms round the field into which disembowelled horses and half-slaughtered bulls are dragged at the last gasp, and there they gloat on the sickening sight of the throes and convulsions of the harddying animals, the looking at the closing death struggle apparently exercising an irresistible fascination on Spanish nerves. For the rest, wherever they go, the Spaniards have their poor always with them. The numbers of these wretches seem to keep pace with the elation of the people's spirits and with the flow of their happy humor. A day of popular rejoicing, be it for a religious, for a political, or simply for a social festivity, conjures up the mendicants, no one knows from what dark corners, just as a fine sunny day brings out snakes and lizards and other vermin from their holes. The Civil Grovernor of Madrid, Senor Moreno Beuitez, has hit on a variety of benevolent schemes to drive the beggars from the streets of the town, by founding asylums and work-houses to receive them. The difficulty, however, lies not in the mendicants themselves. Take away the sunshine and the vermin will disappear ; take away idle, indiscriminate, and improvident almsgiving, and real charity will have its full scope.