Perils Of Bull Fighting

One is accustoined to hear buil fighting denounced as both cruel and cowardly - cruel because of the suffering it inflicts upon animáis, cowardly because the risk run by the bullfighter is infinitesimal. The first charge is absolutely true, so far at least as concerns the unfortunate horses. The second is equally false, as the tragic death of Espartero shonld serve to teach the amateur critics who for the most part have never geen the spectaole they denounce in such unqualifled terms. If the Spaniards would only revive the original form of the sport they borrowed from the Moors - that is to say, the riding, not of wretched cab horses, only fit for the knacker and mounted by professional picadores, but of valuable horses, with "owners up, " who would, of course, exercise their skill in trying to save their mounts - there would be little to be said against buil fighting on the score of cruelty. As to the current sneers at the cowardice of the bullfighters, they are the cutcome of sheer ignorance. One has but to witness the entry into the ring of a fresh cau;ht Andalusian buil twice the size and weïght of a lion, fully as fierce and almost as active to understand that every man in the ring carries his life in bis hand, and that a momentary loss of nerve, of judgment or of footing will probably mean instant death. That terrible fighting "spear" - a Spaniard never talks of a buil 's "hom" any more thau an Englishman of afox's "tail" - would make short work of any man who had not devoted the flower of his age to the stmdy of the most periious of all forms of sport. Those who have seen such daring and awomplished toreros as Lagartijo or Frascuelo take the cloak from the hand of a subordinate and play with the infuriated beast as a child might with a kitten, knowing all the time that the slightest mistake would be fatal, oannot, if they speak the trnth. refuse to admit that the combination of skill and courage is unparalleled. The pen Is of the plaza redeem the sport from the charge of cowardice, thbugh not. as it is at present