Whatever may be said of his failing as an artistic exponent of the art of Cucháres, he killed his bulls in a resolute manner, and re-animated the interest in the _corrida_, but his example was a bad one. Several men emulating his career have endeavoured to become improvised _toréros_, and, like him, to avoid the step-by-step climb to matador's rank. All have been failures. They wanted to begin where the bull-fighter of old left off.
Mazzantini has retired, unscathed, from his twenty years of perilous experience in the arena, and is now a civic light in the local government of the city of Madrid.
Since Guerrita, not a single matador of leading light has arisen. Reverte (1891), Antonio Fuentes (1893), and Bombita (1894) all attracted a numerous public; and after them we arrive at the lesser lights of the present day, Bombita II. and Machaquito.
Notwithstanding its present decadence in all the most essential qualities, yet the _fiesta de toros_ is still, if not the very heartthrob of the nation, at least the single all-embracing symbol of the people's taste as distinguished from that of other lands. Racing has been tried and failed; there are no teeming crowds at football, nor silent watchers on the cricket-field. _La Corrida_ alone makes the Spanish holiday.
The normal British idea of a bull naturally derives colour from those stolid animals one sees at home, some with a ring through the nose, and which are only kept for stud purposes, but occasionally evince a latent ferocity by goring to death some hapless herdsman.
Between such and the Spanish _Toro de Plaza_ there exists no sort of analogy. The Spanish fighting-bull is bred to fight, and the keen experience of centuries is brought to bear on the selection of the fittest--that, moreover, not only as regards the bulls, for the cows also are tested both for pluck and stamina before admission to the herd-register. The result, in effect, assures that an animal as fierce and formidable as the wildest African buffalo shall finally face the matador.
The breeding of the fighting-bull forms in Spain a rural industry as deeply studied and as keenly competitive as that of prize-cattle or Derby winners in England.
At the age of one year preliminary tests are made, and promising youngsters branded with the insignia of the herd. But it is the completion of the second year that marks their critical period; for then take place the trials for pluck and mettle. The brave are set aside for the Plaza, the docile destroyed or gelded; while from the chosen lot a further selection is made of the sires for future years.