notice in the table he appends for 1863, that Madrid province, with a population of four hundred and eighty-nine thousand five hundred souls, and fiftytwo bullfights per annum, produces one jail bird in thirteen hundred and fifty-two persons, whereas Zaragoza province, with three hundred and ninety thousand six hundred habitantes, and only twenty corridas, shows one per eleven hundred and seventy-three. Other figures, equally instructive, follow. The moral is obvious-the universal substitution of academies of the art of Pepe-Illo for the do-nothing atmosphere of a Spanish prison, or the treadmills of Great Britain.

Verily we must applaud Señor López Martínez to the echo; if not for the unimpeachable soundness of his economics, at least for a virtue becoming all too rare in these degenerate and selfish days—his sterling buena fé.

The argument that only the staunch aficionado á los toros is incapable of "showing the white feather," is equally noteworthy. The same Señor López Martínez declares that "the man who is unable without trembling or shuddering to fix his eyes upon the mutilated entrails of a horse, will end by being horrified at the dying agony of a sheep, or the convulsions of a perishing fowl; and this is unworthy of the lord of creation, to whom the Almighty has subjected nature." Another severe assertion is that of Pepe-Illo himself, who was unable to sign his name, but, according to Señor Vidart, a treatise on bullfighting. In Illo's opinion, Isabella the Catholic, by opposing the sport, demonstrated "a cowardly and envious

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spirit, and a character of extreme weakness and apathy."

But no matter what may be the language of the disputants, the fact remains that Spaniards as a race are pro-torero to the core; and the sangre torera courses in their veins as hotly and abundantly as ever. With ample reason the Madrid Heraldo recalls that "while we were losing Portugal, and all but losing Cataluña, the populace of Madrid, without heeding the situation, resorted for amusement to the vega of the Manzanares, or a royal fiesta in the Plaza Mayor or the Retiro; and a century and a half later, while the French were capturing the citadels of Barcelona and Pamplona, and the castle of Figueras, the same populace rushed enthusiastically to the bullfight, paying no regard to the invasion, and taking no offence at the excesses committed by Murat in the very streets of the city." I recollect myself, that when the question with the United States, only a couple of years ago, was approaching its most serious stage, the whole of Madrid flocked to the plaza to see, not a corrida formal, nor even a tolerable novillada, but a lucha (?)—which naturally never came off-between a bull and the tame baby elephant of the Retiro Zoo. Let me observe, en passant, that it is not the first time I have descried, in a similar connexion, the credulity of my excellent friends. the madrileños. Every now and then there is given in the plaza de toros a struggle (so-called) between a wild beast (also so-called) and a bull. Camamas of this nature are extremely simple, and I have no doubt from the managerial point of view extremely economical. The secret consists in buying from a

tamer, and at a nominal cost, a toothless and decrepit fiera (?), bred in captivity and therefore irretrievably mansa, which is to be murdered by a fresh young bull. The "fight" takes place in an iron cage in the centre of the plaza; every means is adopted that the superannuated lion or tiger shall be placed in every detail at a disadvantage; and it is seldom the work of more than a couple of seconds before the defenceless inválido is gored to pieces, and the "victory" decided in favour of the noble beast of Iberia.

I am glad that a Spaniard, Antonio Flores, has been before me in denouncing these abominable luchas de fieras. For my own part, although I am scrupulous enough not to rant against the bullfight proper, I cannot imagine any spectacle more craven and degrading than these other parodies of sport. Only a single detail is praiseworthy; the almost pathetic resignation of the Madrid público to have their pelo tomado!

To return to the popularity of the corridas de toros. We have already seen that in more instances than one the clergy have not been loth to supplement their slender emoluments by breeding and negotiating reses bravas. It could never be expected, therefore, that this venerable and venerated body should abstain from haunting the plazas in the purely passive capacity of on-lookers; and sure enough, the padre cura is frequently as intelligent an aficionado as any of his flock. "It was useless," says López Martínez, "to call the corridas inhuman, immoral, barbarous, and anti-agricultural; priests, foreigners, the very censurers of the bullfight, trans