On bullfighting

SIR: Bullfighting, we’re told, is a sublime art form, a ritual sacrifice, a vital link to ancient fertility rites (‘The lure of the bullfight’, September issue). Bullshit! If we haven’t made some slight moral progress since those days, God help us. The only admirable thing about it is the courage of the matador.

Banning it is a decision for the Spanish. Foreigners can at least boycott it, not make it a tourist attraction. Henry Jeffreys says we used not to be so squeamish – maybe ‘humane’ is a better adjective? – but the same comment could apply to public executions, a popular spectacle in France until 1939. As for the hypocrisy of meat-eating Brits, many of bullfighting’s opponents are vegetarian or vegan. Derek Greatrex, Caversham, Berkshire.

SIR: I much appreciated the article on bullfighting by Henry Jeffreys. Some might even argue that ‘fighting’ is a misnomer, as it is, as Jeffreys says, an art form that is reported in the arts sections of Spanish newspapers.

I have been fortunate to watch some of the best matadors in action and have never seen a really ‘bad’ collide, though of course they do happen. Finally, as has been said, a fighting bull will have spent four idyllic years roaming the pastures with his fellows. At the end, he experiences probably less than ten minutes of pain. How does this compare with the existence of so many animals – not least in this country? Godfrey Dann, East Grinstead.

SIR: Henry Jeffreys makes the mistake of citing one form of cruelty to animals (factory farming) to try to justify another (bullfighting). The ritual mutilation of a bull, involving its back and neck muscles being weakened by the twisting and gouging of picadores’ lances to ensure significant blood loss and the bull’s inability to lift his head in self defence, exacerbated by the banderilleros’ subsequent stabbing harpoon points, provides the matador with an exhausted, severely wounded animal ready for the kill.

‘Sublime artistry’? It’s base butchery. Adrian Maton, London SE1.