HISTORICAL DETAILS OF COCK-FIGHTING. 



35 1 



Mains or 

 Matches. 



or mam. 



Cheshire, Shropshire, and a great part of Wales. 

 At that time the seats were all removed, and the 

 pit used as a confectioner's factory ; the feeding- 

 pens were turned into a nice sitting-room, and 

 the rooms where hundreds of thousands have 

 changed hands, and where they formerly betted 

 in a madness of frenzy, were and probably are 

 now used as bedrooms. The skeleton remained 

 much as formerly, the inside being about 45 by 

 45 feet, and between 30 and 40 feet high. 

 There were nine large windows and a glass 

 dome over the pit, which was some 20 feet 

 in diameter. Of all the stirring scenes that 

 quaint old Chester has witnessed, some of 

 the most exciting have taken place in that 

 now quiet building. 



" Of the different matches made, the most 

 usual was to show say twenty-one pairs of 

 cocks, which was called a short main. They 

 were weighed, and all that fell 

 within one ounce of each other 

 were fought for so much per 

 battle, and so much the odd 

 It was also formerly a practice 

 at the Westminster pit to show sixty-one 

 pairs. They were weighed, and the colour 

 of breast and body taken, as well as the 

 eyes, legs, nails, shape of combs, marks (as 

 ' in-right ' or ' out-left,' mouldy ears, peak- 

 backed), etc. ; then all that fell within one 

 ounce of each other were matched, and 

 divided into three or six days' play, the 

 lightest pair beginning the main three days 

 after weighing : this was called a long main. 

 At Edinburgh, on one occasion, a long main 

 was fought which lasted twelve days, and 

 was finally drawn. There were matches 

 made for turn-outs ; each side got a certain -^ 

 number of the largest cocks obtainable, and *^ 

 fought them without weighing : this is said to 

 be of Dutch origin. There were, besides, the 

 Welsh main, and the battle royal, which last 

 has become quite proverbial. In the battle 

 royal any number staked a certain sum, and 

 produced a cock under a stipulated weight, and 

 each standing round the pit tossed in his cock 

 (same as was customary with the masters of a 

 match with the first pair of cocks in a regular 

 main), and the last living cock took the whole 

 of the money staked. There were also mains 

 for set weights. In the Welsh main, si.xteen 

 cocks were first matched up in pairs, the nearest 

 weights being matched together. Then the 

 winners were matched again (just as successive 

 'heats' are decided in a race), and so on; so 

 that the ultimate winner had to fight four 

 battles. All mains have an odd battle, to pre- 

 vent the main being a drawn one, as it would 



be by each party winning an equal number 

 of battles. Notwithstanding, this occasionally 

 happened by the odd battle itself being drawn, 

 both cocks being struck dead at the same time, 

 for instance." 



The writer of the foregoing interesting notes 

 kindly supplied a Game cock trimmed or " cut 

 out " and heeled for fighting, of which the en- 

 graving is a representation, being carefully 



Game Cock Trimmed and Heeled. 



drawn from life forty years ago. The bird was 

 bred in Cornwall by the late Mr. John Harris, 

 who until his demise in 19 10 preserved the 

 blood, and was from a Coath's hen of the Red 

 Derby strain, by one of Holford's black- 

 breasted, yellow-legged, light Reds. It won 

 five matches, and fought in three mains, mostly 

 in the pair of Watling's steel spurs depicted. 



From the same source we are enabled to 

 give a few particulars and interesting illustra- 

 tions of the artificial spurs used in cock-fighting. 

 It is doubtful if ancient nations used these, but 

 for hundreds of years more deadly weapons 

 than those provided by Nature have been used 



