CHAPTER XVIII 
THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHT 
ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
PERHAPS no other contemporary spectacle has been oftener and 
more minutely described by writers who—censors and enthusiasts 
alike—possess neither personal nor technical qualification, for the 
work. Impressions, once the Pyrenees are passed, grow spon- 
taneously deeper and stronger in inverse ratio with experiences. 
And the majority of descriptions confessedly prejudge the scene 
in adverse sense—the writer (sometimes a lady) going into wild 
hysterics after half-seeing a single bull killed. 
We have not the slightest intention of entering that arena of 
ravelled preconceptions and misconceptions, nor are we concerned 
either to uphold or to condemn. A greater mind has satirised 
the human tendency to “condone the sins we are inclined to, by 
damning those we have no mind to,” and we are content to leave 
it at that. 
In this chapter we purpose to glance at the subject from three 
points of view. 
(1) The origin of bull-fighting, 500 years ago, and its sub- 
sequent development. 
(2) The modern system of breeding and training the fighting 
bull. 
(3) The “ Miura question ”—an incident of to-day. 
As a Spanish institution, bull-fighting dates back to the 
Reconquest or shortly thereafter. When that abounding vigour 
and virility that had animated and sustained Spanish explorers 
and warriors—the sailors and adventurers who, following in the 
wake of the caravels of Columbus, opened up a new world to 
Spain and carried the purple banner of Castile to the ends of the 
earth—when that vigour had spent its fiery force and grown 
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