The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-06-26

l is sodden. No opportunity. no ambition.
 no hope at all only abjectness, super stition, want
 There are few prosperous gamblers in the gaming dens who serve to set oR
 the sinister raggedness of the rest. Sin
 ister. because every one totes gun, sometimes rifle. and appears to ap- praise thirstily the modest jewel on your breast, the purse beneath your pocket flap
 And now the bull ring, ancient, clipped by random shots of many an opera
 bouffe revolution, painted in raucous dabs of blue, green and yellow, with a band emitting frightful blares above the entrance archl A grubby Mexican in cotton clothes
 and a hat with towering crown and S0-
 inch brim distributes handbills announce ing that at 4 p. m. '4 arragantes y braves toros, will be fought to death.
 Follow the names of the intrepid mata-
 dores, banderilleros, picadores, etc, who
 are to fight under the auspices of the
 Charities Association" CD. Seats on the "entrada sombra" (shady
 side of the ring) are g.; those on the
 "entrada a sol'' are s1-and if in all the
 world there is to be seen more wanton
 cruelty and horror for trlfling fee tell
 me where it is! Yet women and young
 girls flock there, bringing dressed-up
 children as to a sylvan picnic
 A huge motor dashes up to the beg
 garly "plaza" in a choking dustcloud.
 It grazes the toes of squatting beggars
 and loafing men, sidewiping the unruly Mexican horses on which half drunk en "soldiers" loll
 From it step half a dozen Mexican
 officers in expensive. we'll fitting service uniforms, brave leather puttees, spurs
 and festoons of braid. The crowd stares and cringes. The slim young officer losses silver dollars to a subaltern, who buys tickets, and with great eclat they pass inside to their hideous entertain ment
 You wonder what is in the mind of the respondent officer as he views the ragged, half-starved desperadoes of his "army." Some sophisticated person whispers to you that few names are published of those who fall in battle. It pays better to keep the names on the roster! The poor creatures pittanoes come in handy l for bullfghts and other extras.
 BULLFIGHT FAILS TO ATTRACT Wondrous tales are told of the sur prising affluence of the Mexican mili- i tary-how they stalk into the stores O. E1 Paso, with grips full of gold and notes, and buy (always for cash; they have to) automobiles, supplies, horses, and what not.
 Inside the bull ring the member of the audience who interests you most perhaps
 is wild, leery soldier fellow whose curvetings and mad dashes on horseback had made you gasp in the custy space outside.
 He now careens up and down the steep concrete steps that form seats for the audience, spurs clanking, revolvers on either hip and beer bottles clattering to the cement floor at every step. These he kicks before him. the glass splinters flying among the spectators, who take 1t all as a matater of course. A blare from the band, flourish of
 barbed sticks as the capadores jab them into the flank of the entering bull-and the horrid fight Is on.
 We won't wait for the finish of the show. We'll make our way through the rabble and the beggars, the half-naked big-eyed children, the fly-covered stands of preserved fruit, the dust and the shack-lined Street of the Devil' and board street car for home, 1. G., the white side" of tho Rio Grande. which, incredible as 1t seems, is barely 10 min utes away. You have made foreign tour and back again in single after noon.