Hold Me Back and Let Me Get at Him: Padded Bulls and Gentlemanly Matadors Peace be unto you, oh critics of "Bull fighting" in Shanghai. The preéminence of Spain in this branch of sport is in no danger of being lowered by The Chinese Bulls Fighting Circus" now showing nightly in the French Concession. The display may be witnessed without danger to one's moral sense, or the tiniest tremor of a thrill.
The ordinary circus programme was quite interesting, and included some exceptionally clever work by groups of acrobats and jugglers, Chinese boxing, and the like. In due course the ring was cleared, musicians struck a martial note and in walked Ah Kee, bearing aloft a banner with a strange device. There followed a host of Chinese matadors, in uniform distinctive if not resplendent, in charge of six combatants—sturdy black bulls, well fed, well groomed, all apparently in most placid mood. The hour was not late, but the six black bulls had a suspiciously sleepy look in the corners of their eyes, and one felt they were present' more in the character of passive resisters than four-footed gladiators thirsting for a fray.
The grand parade having paraded itself out of the ring, a whistle is blown, and: enter the frst pair of combatants, with short-horns padded and a protective steel plate fixed on the front of the head. Having coaxed them into position, head to head, the matadors discreetly stand back and the "'bull-play" begins. The sport can best be described as an invert sion of tug-of-war, the. animals pushing instead of pulling. for the most part it was just a case of "Here I stand and here I intend to remain," but when these intervals of masterly inactivity threatened to be prolonged, a, matador would step in, dexterously lift the head of one of the combatants and so give the other a momentary advantage. Invariably, however,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.