The assembled Councillors, seized with panic, fled.
The murdered Mayor was a Conservative, and the only member of that party who held a seat in the Corporation. It is believed that the assassination was perpetrated in obedience to political motives.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SPANISH BULL-FIGHT
ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
PERHAPS no other contemporary spectacle has been oftener and more minutely described by writers who—censors and enthusiasts alike—possess neither personal nor technical qualification, for the work. Impressions, once the Pyrenees are passed, grow spontaneously deeper and stronger in inverse ratio with experiences. And the majority of descriptions confessedly prejudge the scene in adverse sense—the writer (sometimes a lady) going into wild hysterics after half-seeing a single bull killed.
We have not the slightest intention of entering that arena of ravelled preconceptions and misconceptions, nor are we concerned either to uphold or to condemn. A greater mind has satirised the human tendency to “condone the sins we are inclined to, by damning those we have no mind to,” and we are content to leave it at that.
In this chapter we purpose to glance at the subject from three points of view.
(1) The origin of bull-fighting, 500 years ago, and its subsequent development.
(2) The modern system of breeding and training the fighting bull.
(3) The “Miura question”—an incident of to-day.