Here we touch the very soul of Spain.  Take away the bull-rings, make an end of the toreros, and Spain is no longer Spain—­perhaps a country counting more highly in the evolution of humanity as a whole, but it will need another name if that day ever comes, of which there does not now seem to be the remotest possibility.  All that can be said is that to-day there is a party, or there are individuals, in the country who profess to abhor the bull-fight, and wish to see it ended; it is doubtful if up to this time any Spaniard ever entertained such an “outlandish” notion.  The bull-fight is said to have been founded by the Moors of Spain, although bulls were probably fought with or killed in Roman amphitheatres.  The principle on which they were founded was the display of horsemanship, use of the lance, courage, coolness, and dexterity—­all accomplishments of the Arabs of the desert.  It is undoubtedly the latter qualities which make the sport so fascinating to English aficionados, of whom there are many, and have caused the fiestas de toros to live on in the affections of the whole Spanish people.  In its earliest days, gentlemen, armed only with the rejon, the short spear of the original Iberian, about four feet long, fought in the arena with the bulls, and it was always a fair trial of skill and a display of good horsemanship.

When the fatal race of the French Bourbons came to the throne, and the country was inundated with foreign favourites, the Court and the French hangers-on of the kings turned the fashion away from the national sport, and it gradually fell into the hands of the lower classes, professional bull-fighters taking the place of the courtly players of old, and these were drawn from the lowest and worst ranks of the masses; the sporting element, to a great extent, died out, and the whole spectacle became brutalised. Pan y toros (bread and bulls) were all the people wanted, and, crushed out of all manliness by their rulers, and taught a thirst for cruelty and bloodshed by the example of their religious autos-da-fe, the bull-fight became the revolting spectacle which foreigners—­especially the English—­have been so ready to rail against as a disgrace to the Spanish nation, while they rarely let an opportunity escape them of assisting as interested spectators at what they condemned so loudly, and they quite forgot their own prize-ring, and other amusements equally brutal and disgraceful.  If the corrida de toros was ever as bad as it has been described by some, it has improved very much of late years, and most of its revolting features are eliminated.  The pack of dogs, which used to be brought in when a bull was dangerous to the human fighters, has long been done away with.  The media luna, which we are told was identical with the instrument mentioned in Joshua, is no longer tolerated to hamstring the unfortunate bull; and if a horse is gored in the fair fight, there are men especially in attendance to put him out of his misery at once.  It is doubtful whether the animal suffers more than, or as much as, the unhappy favourites, that are sent alive, and in extremest torture, to Amsterdam and other foreign cities, to be manufactured into essence of meat and such-like dainties, after a life of cruelly hard work in our omnibuses and cabs has made them no longer of use as draught animals.