Bulls

All the world loves a lover and all Spain loves a toreador, and what would be the use of toreadors if bulls could no longer be fought ? Yet, last week, the Iberian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals came into being for the express purpose of warring on bullfighting. Paradox upon paradox, the Society was headed by no less a person than H.R.H. The Prince of Asturias, the Heir-Apparent, and T.R.H. The Infantas Beatrix and Maria Cristina.

To a paradox, there is always an explanation. Little more than 19 years ago, Princess Victoria of Battenberg (now called Mountbatten) was married to King Alfonso. The young Queen, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Britain, it is true, changed her religion, but she did not change her outlook on life so easily. To Madrid she carried a number of Anglo-Saxon prejudices that clashed sharply with Romance culture. If Spanish society did not please her, she closed her eyes to it. If certain grandees by their empty verbosity bored her, she heard as little as possible. But from bullfighting there was no escape.

Not long after her appearance in Spain, she had, perforce, to sit in the royal box in the great bullfighting arena at Madrid. Pale and sick at heart, she watched the bull charge into the ring, watched the matadors and the toreadors approach. That much the Spanish people could force her to do, but they could not make her keep her eyes open; and throughout the whole nauseating, raucous performance, her eyes avoided the cruel slaughter.

In the nursery, the Queen could at least thank God that she was screened from the public gaze. In an Anglo-Saxon atmosphere, she brought up her Anglo-German-Spanish children. Did she tell them bull stories? Most probably. But atavistic influences did more and today, if the Spanish in the 18-year-old Prince of Asturias makes him a bullfighting enthusiast, his Anglo-Ger-man conscience revolts and he becomes head of the Cruelty to Animals Society. If the 16-year-old Beatriz and the 14-year-old Cristina adore the toreador, they detest the cruel slaughter of bulls. Thus, the great-grand-children of Queen Vic.