3SO 



THE BOOK OF POULTRY. 



feeding a cock for four days before fighting, 

 which was communicated by a noble lord to 

 J. Macdonald, M.D., by which remarkable and 

 valuable method ninety-three battles have been 

 won out of one hundred ; now fir:;l published, by 

 permission,' etc. etc. It was subsequently pub- 

 lished in Tlie School of Arts, 2inA consisted of bread 

 made of the flour of millet, rice, barley, vetches, 

 cochineal, the whites and some yolks of eggs, 

 wetted with ale, and baked for four hours, with 

 which the cocks were fed after being purged, and 

 with a slight allowance of bruised seeds and 

 corn, and cooked flesh. Many other recipes for 

 'cock-bread' have been published at different 

 times. 



" Cocks put up and in training were weighed 

 and their match colours and marks taken and 

 noted three days before fighting, when each 

 feeder would produce his birds as light as he 

 could, and as soon as weighed and matched, 

 proceed to get them up as quickly as possible 

 to their highest weight. The birds would 

 be occasionally purged if they were thought to 

 require it, and at intervals muffles* were put on 

 and they A'ere sparred a little for exercise and 

 to keep them in good wind. 



" Previous to fighting the wings were cut from 

 the first rising feather slopewise. Hackle and 

 cloak-feathers were shortened, the sickles all cut 

 off, and the feathers around the tail, vent, and 

 under the belly were cut short. The natural spurs 

 being previously sawn off to about half an inch 

 long, the silver or steel spurs were then placed on, 

 and this again is supposed to be a great art by 

 some ; but I affirm it must be bred in the cock, 

 and it is impossible to put on spurs to a bad- 

 shaped cock to kill quickly, while a child can 

 put on the spurs to a proper-shaped one. They 

 must be padded firm in the socket, not tight, 

 and rest well down on the leg, then tied tightly 

 enough to prevent their moving, but not to cramp 

 him, and from the natural spur place it in line 

 with the outside of the hock. Then the handler 

 stepped on the scene, who required a calm 

 temper, as well as a quick eye and light hand, and 

 had to take into consideration the condition of 

 his opponent's cock as well as his own, otherwise 

 he would not know when to force the fighting or 

 when his bird required rest. This was the most 

 difficult part of the whole routine of cocking ; 

 and Fisher, Straddling, Martin, Gomm, Probyn, 

 Porter, and Fleming often won mains of 

 importance by their exertions alone. Fleming 



* Leather muffles were fastened over the already shortened 

 natural spurs, to prevent any serious injury, and the birds thus 

 protected allowed to fight for exercise. The beak alone does 

 little harm, and they were of course watched to prevent any real 

 damage. 



was, perhaps, the cleverest setter that evei 

 entered a cockpit. 



" The Cockpit Royal, Westminster, was 

 formerly the chief place for this sport, although 

 there were many other public pits in the 

 metropolis, and more than one of the London 

 theatres was originally used for this purpose — 

 Drury Lane for one ; the next in importance 

 was the royal pit, at Newmarket, immortalised 

 by Hogarth. Hogarth is not the only one who 

 has painted such scenes, as Vandyke, Elmer, Mar- 

 shall, Barringer, Fielding, Aiken, Cruikshank, and 

 Wilson also painted them — the latter, a very 

 large painting of the Salford pit and noblemen 

 who frequented it. Neither were London and 

 Newmarket the only places that supported cock- 

 pits, for few towns of any size were without one, 

 and many cities and towns had established cock- 

 pits under patronage of their respective corpora- 

 tions ; as an example, the Canterbury Corpora- 

 tion pit was an apartment of the beautiful 

 gateway forming part of St. Augustine's Mon- 

 astery, and this is not by any means a singular 

 instance of the church and cockpit forining close 

 alliance, either at home or abroad. A former 

 venerable Dean of York bred such cocks as to 

 trouble even Weightman with his best to beat 

 them, and had he lived might have seen the old 

 keeper of the York pit in charge of a Noncon- 

 formist chapel. On the site of the old Aintree 

 pit there has been built a new church. The law, 

 too, as well as the church, has been mixed up 

 with this now tabooed sport ; old gentlemen are 

 still living who recollect, in attending to their 

 professional duties at county sessions, having a 

 six days' main of cocks fixed for the same time ; 

 and although the sessions might have been got 

 through in the first two or three days, those 

 magnates of the law would have been troubled 

 with serious thoughts of having shirked their 

 duties had they left before seeing the last battle 

 in the six days' main decided. 



" The Melton Mowbray pit, I believe, was 

 the last built in England, at a cost of 700 

 guineas. The Subscription pit, at Chester, was 

 one of the last abandoned, and no pit in England, 

 perhaps, could boast of more aristocratic patron- 

 age, heavier betting, or superior fighting. The 

 first main ever fought there was a main between 

 Ireland and England of forty-three mains and ten 

 byes. As the celebrated Doctor Bellyse repre- 

 sented Old England, he won, as he almost 

 invariably did. The writer of this was, by 

 the courtesy of the then occupier, forty years 

 ago invited to see the spot where for years 

 Ralph Benson's Shropshire Reds contended with 

 the Piles and Reds of Cheshire to the admira- 

 tion of all the old county families of Lancashire, 



