SIR, —After hearing the " repeat " broadcast on Saturday, I
am astounded that the B.B.C. should sanction this glorification of a spectacle which it would be illegal to promote here. Of the excitement prevailing, Edward Ward says, " I feel like shouting mysell " ; of the matador's passes, " quite lovely passes—beautiful passes " ; of the banderillas, " another pair go in—a beautiful pair "—this delighted praise being for " that part of the bullfight which inflicts most pain and suffering, some of it useless, on the bull " (Ernest Hemingway). " They just penetrate the bull's neck," says Ward, omitting that they are weighted at the far ends, which hang down near the animal's sides, the barbs uprooting and tearing the skin of the neck, which becomes flooded with blood. Of the kill, " It was a good-thrust—but not good enough. The sword did not go in far enough." (Here we waited some seconds while the animal was miserably dying.) " I think the bull is dying all the same."
Not one word, you notice, to suggest that there is suffering for the animals and cruel indifference in the spectators. The horses' part is gracefully got rid of by, " The bull has charged another horse, and now the horses are being taken away." Any true account would have told us that, when gored by the bull, they do not scream because their vocal cords have been cut before the performance. Blindfolded over one eye, their ears plugged with tow, frequently with straw-stuffed wounds sewn up after a previous i.ppearance, they should make any thoughtful person miserable at their condition and ashamed at being party to :t. In this broadcast there was more than the stabbing of bulls in the neck. When millions hear a commentator's enthusiastic delight and no word of condemnation or of pity, the B.B.C. is itself stabbing our animal pro- tection societies in the back.—Yours faithfully, Hownito Buss. 31 Collingham Road, S.W. 5.
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