Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/561

 Rh name in the unprecedented period of ten years—only a natural sort of outlet for the blood-thirstiness that has till now found its vent in war?

I have no wish to asperse a people who possess many charming and lovable qualities; but Americans must certainly find something essential lacking in those who can sit by and draw a wanton pleasure from a view of the sufferings of any living creature. They connect it with the shooting of prisoners, and many like cruelties they have heard of in the revolutions, and some will say, with a shrug,

"Surely it is no more than we might have expected."

There are now not less than five flourishing bull-rings in the metropolis—one of them, it may be added, owned by an American, who has been noted in other fields for benevolent works. The diversion has become so established a feature of Mexican life that a volume might easily be filled with peculiar incidents connected with it. It cannot really be said that it is fashionable, though so much in vogue. The best people go, much as they might have done here to the old "Black Crook," under protest, feeling that it is something to be rather ashamed—of except—when Mazzantini comes, the great Mazzantini! and then all go in a mass. The tickets then sell as high as ten dollars, against a dollar and a dollar and a half at ordinary times. Mazzantini is the Patti or Brignoli of the art, the pet of two hemispheres. He comes over from Spain—stopping at Cuba on the way once—or perhaps twice a year, for a brief season. He is a handsome man, dark, without beard after—the general mode of the bull-fighters and lithe and slender of frame. He has a fine subtle way of smiling, with half-closed eyes—a smile that somehow suggests the keen edge of his sword. Edgar