Evening star., 1947-07-29

and the man who breaks one is both
fined and pelted with bottles, ia
males and everything else throw
able. The whole business, accord
ing to our information, is carefully
designed not so much to infuriate
the animal as to break down his
neck muscles SO he will drop his
head. The bulls tower over the
matadors and if they didn't lower
their heads they couldn't be stabbed
and they'd win the fight, which is not
the idea.
n Il ~
The matador takes over the bull
first, leading the beasts charges
with his cape, trying to make him
turn suddenly and wear down those
back and neck muscles. Then the
picadors take over, sticking pics in
the bulls neck while the bull tries
to stick horns into them and their
horses. The banderilleros get him
next, jabbing banderillos into him.
Finally he goes back to- the matador
for dispatching, which is done face
to-face. The matador who sneaked
up on a bull from behind would be
stoned ont of town. The matador
who fails to do away with his bull
in the legal number of tries is al
most stoned out Of town.
Our informants do not hold with
the theory that the whole routine is
designed to infuriate the bull. Even
the business of hanging colored
ribbons on the bull with steel barb
just as he charges into the ring does
not infuriate him. Mr.. Borras said
he didn't think it could make him
any too happy, but he was argued
down.
Fighting bulls are especially bred
to be always mad at matadors, any,
how. The matadors association and
the bull breeders association are con-
tinually at odds over the size and
fierceness Of the bulls furnished for
fights. The breeders have ingenious
schemes for making sure that only
the toughest, toughest animals are
sent to the arenas.
One tester Is a horseman who races
alongside bulls running at top speeds
and jabs them in the hind leg with
long pole. The ones that fall down
or try to get away are discarded as
fit only for beef stew.
There is one thing you should re-
member If you ever wake up and
find you are matador. Don't, when
you join the other matadors to toss
coin and select the bulls you will kill
that afternoon, choose a near
sighted bull. You might think you
would feel safer facing a nearsighted
bull, but 1t would be false security.
A bull charges in a straight line, but
only after he sees something to
charge. A bull with good eyesight
charges straight across an arena and
gives matador time to see where
he is going so he, the matador, won't
be there, too.
We can tell you, too, what it feels
like to be just missed by charging
bull because a conversation we had
with a girl some 10 years ago seems
to have left its mark on us. The
girl was Portia c. Portar, who danced
here both at the Shoreham and the
Madrillon. Before she danced here
she learned bull-fghting in Mexico
and she said that being missed by a
charging bull felt the same as being
missed by inches by speeding auto
mobile much better than being hit
by one.
Miss Portar was supposed to be
the only feminine toreador around
at the time and it took us 10 years
to learn that the term Is used only
in operatic, not in bull-fghting cir
cles. Toreador Is a coined French
word of no standing in Spain.
Miss Portar, incidentally, wherever
she is now, has something in COM
mon with President Truman, Fiorello
La Guardia and John @. Public. Her
middle initial doesn't mean a thing
either.