THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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sessors of tickets in uneasy restlessness all that time. Crowds assemble at the mint at the hour appointed, standing in every available spot, even clinging to the windows outside, and about twenty small boys dressed in linen suits are taken in, two by two, to call out the number of the winner and the amount won as the wheel whirls around. Everyone smokes in stolid silence, straining their ears to hear their own number called, and sullen despair takes the place of the look of expectancy on the majority of faces when the drawing closes. Once the crowd parted to let a flushed, disheveled workman in a blue blouse rush excitedly out of the building seeking the open air in which to enjoy his triumph, as he had won a portion of the grand prize, a sum amounting to about a thousand dollars. This love for the lottery is only equaled by the passion for bull-fights, which is inborn in every Spaniard, and so deep a hold has this barbarous amusement attained on the national temperament that it would doubtless cause a revolution if an attempt were made to abolish it.
Sunday is the gala day. Then the bull-ring is filled with thousands of people, and the avenues approaching the buildings are thronged with carriages and horsemen, all wending their way toward the central point. Opening from the ring are the stables for the horses, the inclosures, fenced in with iron, for the bulls, and the chapel in which the toreadors or bull-fighters go to confession before entering the arena. The band strikes up, the procession of those who are to take part in the performance marches in front of the boxes of the royal and judges, saluting the dignitaries seated within; the gate leading to the bulls’ inclosure is thrown open, and a bull dashes forward. If he is considered not sufficiently fierce, a rosette is fastened to a sharp-pointed prong which is thrust in his back as he enters, which causes him to lash his tail and to try to escape from this irritating pricking; but every movement makes the sharp instrument sink deeper into the flesh, the blood begins to trickle down, and, still further excited by the flaunting of the red capas , or cloaks, on every side, he dashes at the first horse he sees, and usually comes off victorious by goring the animal and often throwing the rider. The horses are so heavily caparisoned and half-blinded that escape is wellnigh impossible, although the rider with his long spear tries to save the steed by planting his lance in the neck of the bull as he advances. Sometimes he succeeds, but the poor animal is doomed to appear before three different bulls, so that it would be charity to have him killed outright at the first encounter rather than to be sponged off and brought in again and again, lamed and crippled, and finally disemboweled. The horses used on these occasions are poor, thin, worn-out animals, to be sure; but to have them thus slaughtered is a most cruel and degrading practice, the constant repetition of which makes men callous to the sight of suffering and dulls their higher nature. The bodies of the brutes are left strewn around the ring where they have fallen until the signal is given that this part of the performance is over, and the next act begins.
The horses are dragged off the scene, another bull is let loose, and a man on foot holding in each hand a long stick, decked with ribbons and tipped with steel points, stands ready to place the darts on each side of the neck as the bull charges. This is done until six or eight of these bandetillas , as these sticks are called, are waving from the animal’s neck, and the crowd applauds as the man thrusts them in two by two, and jumps lightly aside from between the horns of the bull. If he should fail in the attempt the crowd does not fail in signifying disappointment and disapprobation, and to be disgraced in the bull arena is the disgrace of a lifetime, especially in the next and crowning act, when the espada, the principal performer in the drama, with sword in hand, is to give the final lunge which ends the bull’s existence. Three are allowed him, and generally so accurate is his aim that at the first trial the bull, after bellowing noisily from the pain inflicted by the banderillas, falls silently and remains motionless when the sword concealed behind the red cloak pierces his heart instantaneously.
These bull-fights begin at 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon and last about three hours, or until the six or eight bulls and as many horses are slain, and on special feast days a great many more horses fall to celebrate the occasion. At the close of the fight a young bull with his horns covered so that he cannot injure anyone is let into