Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/560

 540 twenty at Barcelona, all in single corridas, or exhibitions, at those places respectively.

After this we hastened to catch our train. As I went, I noticed, in the regions below, a slaughter-house as an adjunct of the arena. My amiable señora was right; the bulls had to be killed some time, and we had only been witnessing the work of the shambles dramatized, as it were. The reflection occurs, in passing, why, if it be so rare an amusement, should not the system be extended to the minor animals as well? Some very good enjoyment might, no doubt, be got out of the artfully prolonged death-struggles of calves, sheep, and swine, which might be committed to the hands of the youth; while children could make a beginning upon rabbits and fowls, for example.

Whoever would explain to himself this recent craze in Mexico must not leave out of account what is taking place in Spain. D'Amicis told us, as early as 1873, that bull-fighting showed no signs of abatement there, but was even on the increase; and—with the same blood and general traditions—whatever is greatly in vogue in the mother-country must make itself felt sooner or later in her ex-colony. We know something of what it is to be troubled by Anglomania ourselves.

As to the cause in old Spain, perhaps it is the uncertain tenure of a monarchy tottering to its fall, and desirous to distract the people with the ancient Roman remedy of "bread and games." I sometimes wonder, too, if its restoration in Mexico be not some little connected with the personal ambition and schemes for continued hold upon power of Don Porfirio Diaz, the semi-dictator. Or is it, again—since there have been no revolutions worthy of the