Every time I attended a bull-fight, I was more and more impressed with a conviction of its cruelty and brutality. It is improperly termed a fight, because the bull has never a chance of victory and escape; it is merely a massacre,--and the series of abominable cruelties exhibited in the treatment of the horses, stamps the whole with a character of brutality and barbarism, sufficient, in my opinion, to separate Spain from the list of civilized nations. It is not merely the atrocities that an interested contractor for the bull-fights may permit,--not merely that the picador continues to ride upon an animal bathed in blood, and whose entrails trail upon the ground,--but that the Spanish people can witness and tolerate such barbarity. I do not wish to seem prejudiced; but I cannot believe that there are many among the very lowest ranks in this country who would not, at such a spectacle, cry out “kill him!” It was proposed by the present queen to envelope the horses in a net, by which the most disgusting part of the exhibition would have been concealed; but this was a refinement which it was thought would not be relished by the mob, and I believe it was never attempted. By the horses having no power of defence, and by their being deprived of the means of consciousness of their condition, the cruelty of the spectacle is increased. Townshend, that very respectable and accurate writer, is in error when he speaks of the courage shewn by the horses in facing their enemies: this, if true, would give a character of greater nobility to the entertainment; but the horses know neither their enemies nor their danger; their eyes are blinded, and their ears are tied up. If the horses were netted round the body, and if they were led off the arena when wounded; if their eyes were uncovered, that when the rider was unhorsed, they might have a chance of escape, in place of standing to be gored, unconscious of the vicinity of the enemy,--if the semi-luna were discontinued;--and, above all, if a valiant bull, which could unhorse two picadores without being wounded, and parry two or three thrusts of the matador, were allowed the reward of its victory--life: then the bull-fight would be divested of much of its barbarism, without losing, but, on the contrary, greatly adding to the interest which it at present possesses.