The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-06-16
BULL FIGHTING AS IT IS.

An Americans Description Of the Mexican Sports-He saw Six Bulls Killed in One Afternoon, and Ills Only Regret Was That None of the Fighters Was Gored.
 If you should visit Mexican city on a Sunday you would do what forty nine out of every fifty Americans, visitors do, see bull fight. That is what the writer did a few Sundays ago in the City of Mexico. And you would come away vowing that MeXi- cans are the most bloodthirsty people you ever saw. It Is feast for the de- prayed, relic of barbarism, but very popular with the Mexican masses. Often as many as 10000 people, sit through the spectacle, and the more blood spilled the louder the cheer. Compared to bull fight, a prize fight or hanging bee Is tame You might as we'll compare an Indian medicine to three-ring railroad circus with a string of eleven elephants.
 Every Mexican city has one or two bull rings, and in at least two cities there are double rings where two fights can be seen at the same time for one admission fee on the plan of the big American circuses. Troops of bull fighters travel from one city to another, just the same as circuses, playing en- agreements of several weeks in each city and receiving stipulated sum for each performance.
 Bull fights are held on Sunday and feast days It was to the Plaza de Toros bull ring that the writer made his way. This ring is shaped like an amphitheatre, open to the sky. The arena is inclosed by a plank fence four feet high, with a rail a foot wide, eight cen inches from the ground on the in- side. on which performers step and vault over the fence when too hotly pursued by an angry bull landing in narrow alley that separates the fence from the first row of seats. The arena is two hundred feet in diameter and the floor Is of sand, packed hard. Back of the alley twenty tiers of plank seats rise up. Above these are the boxes, furnished with chairs, crowded closely together. Facing the arena on the first tier of seats is the private box of the referee and his bugler, and near by is the band stand. The amphitheater will seat ten thousand people. The admis sion ranges from twenty-five cents to two dollars, seats on the sunny side of the ring costing just one-half as much as those in the shade. A box costing from eight to twenty dollars will hold from four to ten people.
 The fights begin at three o'clock and end at six, but the crowd begins to ar rive an hour before the sport begins Mexican peons are poor, but none of them is so poor that he cannot dig up money enough at least every other Sun day to buy ticket for the bull fight They sit so close together on the sunny side that their broadbrim, high-crown straw hats resemble circles of toad stools, The well-to-do and fashiona- bles occupy the boxes, and there is all ways a liberal sprinkling of foreigners in the crowd.
 Twenty minutes before three o'clock the band arrived and was welcomed with a prolonged cheer from the bleach CTS. The leader arose and bowed his acknowledgements, and then the band struck up quickstep. Then came the referee, and he was cheered, too. The referee is a government or state official, and has charge of the performance. It is his duty to see that the bulls have a fair show, to impose fines if members of the troupe do not put up a good fight, and to act as master of ceremonies. The sport is governed by as stringent rules as prize fighting. One rule is that the bull must always be attacked from the front, never from the rear or side. To violate this rule means fine and an unmerciful scoring from the bleachers, who are as sharp critics as those who sit Tn an Onera house gallery.
 The referee no sooner takes his seat than an indescribable yell goes up from the impatient bleachers. The referee mods to his bugler, who blows the sig nal blast. The band strikes up. The gates opposite the referees box swing open and the troupe of bull fighters en- ters the arena, advancing to the refe- ree's stand and lowing low. The mat ador heads the procession. He is the star performer, who finally kills the bull, considered the most exciting and perilous feat performed. He is followed by the capeadors, who fiaunt gaudily colored capes at the bull to anger him Then come the banderilleros. who when the bull is sufficiently stirred up, thrust sharp barbs on each side of his verte- brae that make him wild with rage The picadors follow on horseback, and the procession winds up with three white mules, harnessed abreast, witt bright-colored ribbons flying from the harness and strings of tiny bells jim gling. The mules draw out the deac bull at the end of each act.
 Your first thought is that bull f1gh is a tame affair. The little procession is pleasing to the eye, and the feeling O. horror that possesses you when you sa down has worn away. The men art picturesquely dressed in knee brooches short velvet jackets, trimmed with golt lace and silver braid and silk hose They might be French play actors, ant they step about and bow in as courtly z manner as prince might. The bleach CTS applaud the paraders long and loud ly. The horses are gaily caparisoned and the trappings hide the fact tha