From Si,' Anthony Montague Browne Sir: I thought that the
issue of 'bullfighting' was happily dead. It appears, on the contrary, to be very much alive, with your 'taurine correspondents' happily writing away and, of course, not failing to evoke their patron saint, Hemingway — the cult of false hair on the chest.
In 1958 I was with Sir Winston Churchill on board the yacht Christina in Seville. Some local dignitaries called on him to say that they were preparing a bullfight in his honour and looked forward to his attendance. Churchill replied briefly, 'I shall do no such thing. It is not a bullfight: it is a bull torture,' and he turned his back on them.
It is difficult in a short letter to encompass all the objections to seeing the tormenting to death of a grass-eating animal. Perhaps money is the motive. It usually is.
And then there are the horses, usually old and sometimes infirm. Even with the padding, the impact of the full weight of a charging bull causes disastrous internal injuries and broken bones. In the past — and, I understand, in some areas of the world to this day — the horses' vocal cords are severed to stop them screaming, and analgesic drugs are administered before the 'fight'.
Some years ago there was an inquiry in Spain, I think governmental, into the whole question. It was revealed that particularly agile bulls were sometimes brought to the ring upside-down in their transportation shortly before the spectacle, that some had their horns filed down in a particularly sensitive place to prevent them charging home, and that some had a large dose of Epsom salts administered to reduce their speed and agility.
If you delight in cruelty. at least do so in shameful solitude. I wonder how much pain and misery your articles will cause, attracting further witless and vulgar people to pay for these disgusting scenes?
Anthony Montague Browne Bucklebuq, Berkshire
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