Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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♦ > W V t *, .♦ ♦...♦ ♦. * ^ . SPAIN’S BRUTAL BULLFIGHTS THE CHARACTERISTICS FOSTERED BY THE TOREADORS ARE LARGE LY RESPONSIBLE FOB THE DEGENERACY OF THE NATION. period s date as late as me accession of the Bonrbous, in 1770; hot as their chronicles are silent concerning the exploits of the Spanish nobilitj in LD SPAIN, despite the disgusting im morality of the thing, knows of no sight more stirring and im posing than the first part of an ex pensive bull fight, with the c e r e- mouiouH entrance to the blare of trumpets; the pro cession of historic costumes of crim son, pale blue, white and canary; of pea green, silvery white and pink; of scarlet, black, dark blue and white— and over all of it the brilliant sun light, the perfumes of spring in the sweet air, and the enthusiasm of a mighty audience that moves and shouts and blazes with excitement. The ring at Tarragona, for example — little, old, lost-to-the-world Tarra gona—gives seats for 17,000 people— more than the entire population of that backward town along the Medi terranean; and yet, the seats are often full, for the country people for miles •round flock in, on foot, on donkeys, asses, horses and in bullock carts. So that when the big band strikes up the old barbaric march, and the thousands on the benches move themselves un easily, and shout down greetings to their favorite fighters, yon have a ecene before you not to be forgotten. The central idea of a bull-fight, the Spanish will tell the visitor, is to dis play the courage and dexterity of men. It is acknowledged that the bull is more than a man’s match—the bull with his strength, ferocity and sharp horns, and the man alone, armed with a sleder sword. Again, it is essential that the bull should be killed with but one single stroke, given while the swordsman, the espada, faces him. This stroke must also be delivered in one special spot, behind the shoulders, to penetrate the heart. Should it glance and strike the lungs instead, so that the bull will drop blood from his mouth, the audience is disgusted, and expresses its disgust. All this is delicate and dangerous work, and it requires preparation to make con ditions equal for both parties, man most degraded of all bull-fighters, the picadores, so little-thought-of by the people themselves that the lowest, cheapest braud of Spanish cigarettes are called, with one consent, the pica dores. It is the trade of these gentle men—who ride in always, it is said, half drunk—to see that the bind-folded horses which they ride are properly ruined by the bull; it is their trade to spear the bull with a long lance, to irritate him, and to save themselves. They, themselves, are protected on the legs by ifon sheathings. After two or four or even eight horses have been gored and tossed and tumbled, and are dragged away dead and bleeding, the trumpet sounds and a very differ ent set of men dash into the wide bull- ring. this regard all through the eight eenth century, there is reason to give the date of “the accession of the Bourbons” its mere sentimental value. The chronicles of the ring begin again in 1770, with the name of the plebeian Pedro Komero; with the Corrida de Toros in full swing as well as the depraved. Little children suck their oranges contentedly while the miserable horses are squealing with pain, their entrails protruding from their ruined bellies. It seems to be only a question of getting used to it. They say you can got used to anything. YOUNG HERO OF SANTIAGO. Charles Esendero, of Ohio, Ace Fourteen, Carried Water to the Wcnnded on San Joan Hill. “THE ENTRANCE TO THE BLARE OF TRUMPETS.’ Although Charles Escudero, four teen years old, doesn’t realize it yet, time will show that as the water boy of the Ninth Infantry in Cuba he was as much a hero as any man who car ried a gun in the wild fight and fearless charge up San Juan hill. Charlie arrived at New York City, a few days ago, on the transport Lou isiana aud was shipped to his home, Columbus, Ohio, by the Children’s Aid Society. Charlie looked like a picturesque re* concentrado, wearing a regulation brown cavalry hat, au old brown jacket and a pair of tronsers much the worse for the Santiago campaign. The rem nants of the shoes that carried him up the rocky hill of San Juan held his feet, aud a blue fianuel shirt, much too large, was lapped about him. His father was a bugler iu the Niuth Infantry, which Charlie managed to 'join at Tampa. There he was smug gled ou a transport, aud when he got to Cuba he was told he might act as water boy for the Ninth Infantry. He was iu all the fighting at Santi ago aud wherever there was a man of the Ninth with his gun there the water boy went at the call of the sol dier. Charlie is modest in his stories of what he did at San Juan hill. “I carried water to the soldiers. My father is a bugler and I was with him nights. When there was fight ing I had to work. When I saw our men getting killed I wished I had a gun, but I Rad to carry water. I had four cauteeus. One held about two quarts. The men firing would see me and yell to ask if I’d got any water. If they were all empty'I went to the creek and filled them. At the last it got a long way to go. ‘Wasn’t I afraid?’ I just thought I’d get ••-Vs 4 A INSt-LTINO A LAZY BULL. aud bull. Besides there must be cere mony and a show. Out of these ne cessities the numerous aud well-de fined acts aud scenes of a bull-fight take their due progression. The bull must first bo exercised be fore the audience, that they may take pleasure in his strength. The ani mal is noble, with a pedigree as loug as that of many a Don. He is slender, with small hincl-quartcrs aud tremen dous neck aud shoulders. Neverthe less, he is rather small than large. His horns arc straight aud sharp; and he is quick, tricky and vicious. The ordinary bull-fighters, toroadores, flaunt their cloaks before his face aud escape with difficulty, oftoh being obliged to jump the feuce around the ring. But for the poor horses there is no escape, and hero is whore the ill ness of the stranger takes its suddeu rise. ‘wvfciiii;:-*. The object of bringing in the horses, early in the game (poor broken-down old creatures), is really four-fold. It is first to exhibit the vigor of the bull, when he lifts and tosses them with the most abominable strength. Next, it is to tire the bull a little, so that it will not be impossible fora single man to face him, later ou. Thirdly, it is I true, but he is still These are the banderilleros. Each one of them has two be-ribboned darts, like little harpoons, in his hand,which he must fix in the bull’s neck to pain him, to infuriate him, and to make him exhibit the agility of men. It is a matter of no little skill aud danger; if suoeessful, it almost crazes the animal, giving him the maximum of ferocity with the minimum of strength. It is also one of the “pret tiest” parts of the oorrido de toros; for the bull 1,1 will to these and courageous ban letos, whjroften must evade Trim by a single inqh. Each evasion and each trick of daring has its name, and is applauded or hissed by the excited themsauds on the benohes, according to tuo audacity, coolness and dexterity of the men, or the reverse. Those lively fellows, who take ter rible risks, will seat themselves ou chairs and let the bull come thunder ing down on thorn. Then at the very instant that he would strike them, toss them, mangle them, they rise, plant their harpoons into his neck, and leap aside. The bull must be content to toss the chair. Or they will take a long pole, and leap over the bull’s back as he comes at them. Or they will kueel down on one knee, with grace, and tickle the puzzled beast upon his nose with a lace hand kerchief and slip aside from him. Their harpoons, which they jab into his injured and insulted neck, should make him wild. But if he does not show sufficient wildness, the people ory for “Fire!” And here it is too sickening and cow ardly to proceed in detail. Sufficient it will bo to say that there have bee" 1 invented banderillas with firework at tachments, that they may burn after they have been thrust into the bull’s heck! '"'*' Enough. The time has now arrived for the great act of the matodor, or the espadc, the most important man, tho high professional who has to kill a crazy bull, made monstrously wicked by ill-treatment and a thousand goad- ings. The bull is weakened, it is so dangerous that a mercenary show; and with the Spanish dons content to patronize it iu the simple act of paying for their seats. Komero found the national sport “degenerated” to a simple conflict be tween a bull autl professional-with- out-a-profession. Apart from the lack of noble Spanish blood in the bull fighter, the degeneracy appears to ve consisted in an exchange of the hdavy armor in which chivalry was wint to prudently pnvelop itself for Pedro Komero,. first, threw aside •very kind of'proteotion, appearing as a gymnast, light, graceful and exact; and secondly, to counterbalance the obvious disadvantage, hit upon the device of “tiring out” the bull by a whole series of “preliminary exer cises,” to be performed by under studies. He invented, also, a new and very dangerous method of killing the animal, a single sword-blow, which must penetrate a certain spot behind the shoulder of the bull, while the bull-fighter perilously faced him. How muoh this was “degenerating” from the pradonoe of the old aristocrats who, in their knightly armor, speared the bull from the backs of their war- horses, and hacked at him, when un seated, with their battle-axes, is a question rather delioate than difficult to answer. During the past twenty years two LAST CiREAT ACT OF THE B3PADA. to give the bull a smell of blood, that being naturally what he himself is fighting for. Lastly—it must be said, unhappily—it is to give the people themselves a sight of blood. I believe this latter to be absolutely true, iards. The audience seems to like tho blood of mangled horses! And now, while the bull is being taunted in the ring, almost at the be ginning, the horses, blindfolded, are therefore being slowly ridden around to him. Unoa them are mminted the half tho matadors of history have found their death in the ring. It is in vain that the Spanish de fend their bull-tights as “the heroic games” of their ancestors, “conse crated by antiquity.” The troth is in spite of all denials of Spun- , the ancestors of their ancestors long ago abandoned the corrida to paid professionals of low birth. Spanish bull-fights ceased to possess anything of the old chivalry when chivalry it self expired, more than two centuries ago. Apologists of the ring, indeed, claim for t-he end of “tha aristocratic FRA8CT7ELO AND LAGARTIJO. names have been all-poweriul in the peninsula. Rafael Molina y Sanchez (called Lagartijo) and Salvador San chez (Frascuelo) have done for their trade what John L. Sullivan did for the fighting business in America. They refused to fight for the com paratively small pay of their predeces sors, and by reason of their popularity were able to make extraordinary terms with the Spanish public and impres arios, The profession is grateful to them to-day, now that they are in their old age, and they are still called by courtesy the two stars of Spain. Lagartijo, in particular, was always a ferocious fellow, insisting that the public should have its full of blood and excitement. Nowadays the success of the fight ere does not depend so muoh on the applause of wealth end beauty in the boxes as it does on the fidelity of the respectable middle-class pxbiic in the reserved seats of the grada, to say nothing of the yelling populace on the atone benches innaediately around the arena. As for the modern Spanish lover, he feels that he is doing a great deal when he pays the admission price to the grada for his sweetheart and her mother. The Spanish lover is, ordinarily, spoony, and the Spanish girl is seemingly~ordinarily, timid to a degree; the Spanish mother is very often pretentious, and the whole mid dle class and lower class population astonishingly democratic ahd out spoken. This, then, is the bull-fight, and the spirit of the bull-fight audience. The audience is composed of every type of citizen—the respectable end good, as TTStii Ev. 'V':" l3Ws Skirt of Figured Foulard. Figured foulard in sage green and white is here shown with a pretty sim ple foot trimming, composed of three narrow frills of sage green satin rib bon. Having a straight back breadth with each bias edge of gores joined to the straight edges, this skirt will not sag and is, therefore, especially adapted to sheer fabrics, such as organdy, lace net, silk tissue and other light tex tures, while for washable fabrics it is more than desirable. The front gore is of moderate but fashionable width and separate two narrow gores on each • CHARLES ESCUDERO. (He marched beside his soldier father and gave water to the men as they fought before Santiago.) killed; and we’d all get killed that day, the bullets came so thick. I saw men I knew get hit. “I kept run of my father by the bugle, mostly. Did I see many wounded? Yes, I carrisd water to ’em when I could. Sometimes I had to pour it into their mouths, but most of the men I saw wounded were able to get on their elbows to drink. “I’ve got plenty of relics fqr my mother—Spanish cartridges and other Spanish relics. I’m going back to school. I’m in the fifth grade.” The boy seems to have suddenly be come aged by his experiences. He is only a little chap, with big brown eyes and long lashes, and he says he does so want to see hie mother and sisters. Consumption of Coal. The consumption of coal per head of population is lowest in Austria, where it is only one-sixth ton per annum,and highest in Great Britain, where each person averages three and three-tenths tons each year. In the United States the average is two and one-fourth tons a year. Thu Time It Fulled. Mrs. Callahan—“Don’t yez re- mimber Oi told yez th’ marnin’ not to go in swimmin’ to-day?” Patsy Callahan—“Oh, come off, mudder. Youse want me ter say yes, an’ den yon’re goin’ ter say, ‘Fergit it an’ remember de Maine.”-—Judge. Russia is said to own 3,000,000 horses—nearly one-half of the whole number in existence. is certainly simple em. Wash the face in Vi milk every night and out wiping. A mixtn small tablespoonful of spoonful of salt appli obstinate blemish of tl it almost like magic, remedy prescribed by skin authorities in Eu said that the use of i half the secret of the £ smooth, beautiful skin Fancy Braids For To some extent fan •reappeared in the anti and may be used a littl Paris model hats show; sale houses scarcely usi The braid has been po] likely to take a long ti out.” Striking; Fall Co The popularity of tl from taffeta, either b beige color, seems to i season advances, and take first place for wear various sorts. The moc a soft shade of gray and fancy waist of figured bits of pale corn color i with mousseline de soie tender yellow. The foi is cironlar and fits snu( hips. The frills, which i in width, are each cat b with velvet ribbon stitch "3* * GIRL’S COSTUME. side, which fit smoothly over the hips and fall in pretty folds with tho fash ionable fiare at the foot. The lower edge measures about three and one-half yards in the medium size. Bands of braid, ribbon or insertion, with or without ruffles, ruchiug or other applied trimming can be used to decorate the skirt in any preferred style. • To make this skirt for a lady of medium size five and thrcs-eiglitli yards of material thirty-six inches wide will be required. Dreaa For a Grow in* Girl. Whatever number of more elaborate and delicate gowns the growing girl’s wardrobe may include, one of sturdy stuff, simply made, is essential to her comlort and well-being. The model shown in the large illustration is of light weight serge in royal blue and is trimmed with fancy black braid. But cheviot, covert cloth and all the new spring suitings, as well as cash- mere, are equally suitable. The foundation for the waist is a fitted lining that closes at the centre- back. On it are arranged the full body portions and the yoke, which is extended and divided to form slashed epaulettes. The straight strip shown at the front is lined with crinoline, then applied to the waist proper, cov ering the edges of full fronts. The sleeves are two-seamed and fit snugly, except for the slight puffs at the shoulders, which are universally worn by children aud young girls. The pointed wrists are finished with frills of lace, and at the throat is a high standing collar. The skirt is four-gored and fits smoothly across the front and over the hips, the fulness at the back be ing laid in backward-turning plaits. It is lined thronghout, bat unstiffened, and is trimmed with two rows of fancy braid. To make this costume for a girl of eight yearn will require two and one- half yards of forty-four-ioch material. A Care For Bad Complexion*. Bad complexions have sent more women to the grave than epidemics. Nothing frets a woman like a rough, muddy skin. A cure-ell for blemishes The fancy waist is made o’ lining which closes at the cei but is itself fitted by shoul and smooth underarm gi closes below the left side, t being separate and eeame waist proper. The fall mot faced to yoke depth at the stitched to the right-front, 1 over into place at the left and beneath the left rever. neck is a soft collar of the s plemented by a frill. The i each faced with gray, and an with tiny ribbon frills, whi the mousseline in shade. Tl are not seamed, and show oi fulness at the shoulders. At is worn a belt of straw-colore with an oblong bnokle of rhi A POPULAR MODEL, To make this waist fqr a ^ medium size five yards of twentv-two inches wide, wil auired.