One Word on this wonderful Bull, that disarms death of its sting, and
which, although few of our readers may ever have heard of it, plays a
far more important part in the Peninsula than the quadruped does in the
arena. Fastings are nowhere more strictly enjoined than here, where Lent
represents the Ramadan of the Moslem. The denials have been mitigated to
those faithful who have good appetites, by the paternal indulgence of
their holy father at Rome, who, in consideration that it was necessary
to keep the Spanish crusaders in fighting condition in order more
effectually to crush the infidel, conceded to Saint Ferdinand the
permission that his army might eat meat rations during Lent, provided
there were any, for, to the credit of Spanish commissariats in general,
few troops fast more regularly and religiously. The auspicious day on
which the arrival is proclaimed of this welcome bull that announces
dinner, is celebrated by bells merry as at a marriage feast; in the
provincial cities mayors and corporations go to cathedral in what is
called state, to the wonder of the mob and amusement of their betters at
the resurrection of quiz coaches, the robes, maces, and obsolete
trappings, by which these shadows of a former power and dignity hope to
mark individual and collective insignificancy. A copy of this precious
Bull cannot of course be had for nothing, and as it must be paid for,
and in ready money, it forms one of the certain branches of public
income. Although the proceeds ought to be expended on crusading
purposes, Ferdinand VII., the Catholic King, and the only sovereign in
possession of such a revenue, never contributed one mite towards the
Christian Greeks in their recent struggle against the Turkish
unbelievers.
[Sidenote: DEATH-BED IN SPAIN]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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