146] ANNUAL REGISTER, ISOO. 



distress that religious zeal is strong- 

 est and most successful. It is in 

 like manner, at a time of danger to 

 religious establishments, that some- 

 what of the spirit that produced them 

 is rekindled. But, in the present 

 case, it seems probable, that the 

 zeal of the prot-estants was not 

 awakened but by the interference 

 of ecclesiastics. 



There was another bill, for the 

 security of religion and morality, 

 brought into parliament in the 

 course of the present session, more 

 successful than that for the regu- 

 lation of monastic institutions. — 

 This was a bill presented, on the 

 twenty-first of April, by Dr. Beil- 

 by Porteus, the bishop of Lon- 

 don, for the better observance of 

 Good- Friday ; which was passed 

 without any opposition. 



The bill for regulating monastic 

 institutions was rejected, chiefly on 

 the ground that it was unnecessary : 

 so also was a bill brought in by sir 

 William Pulteney, on the third of 

 April, for preventing the practice 

 of bull-baiting. The debate on 

 this bill afforded not a little enter- 

 tainment ; and formed a kind of 

 episode in the parliamentary epo- 

 pee of this year, not unlike those 

 comic digressions with which epic 

 poets relieve the serious air of their 

 narration and description. Thesecre- 

 tary-at-war set himself to prolong 

 the war between bulls and dogs, as 

 well as that of war with the great 

 enemy of this country, France. 

 What, said Mr. Windham, was 

 there so alarming in the practice of 

 bull-baiting ? It had existed more 

 than a thousand j'ears, without pro- 

 ducing any of the crying evils 

 which were now attributed to it. 

 It was not unfair to attribute to the 

 manly amusements of the people of 



England, of which bull-baiting was 

 one, much of that valour which 

 was so conspicuous in their martial 

 achievements by sea and land. — 

 Courage and humanity, too, seemed 

 to grow out of their wholesome 

 exercises. The sport here, he ad- 

 mitted, was at the expense of an 

 animal which was by no means a 

 party to the amusement : but it, 

 at the same time, served to culti- 

 vate the qualities of a certain species 

 of dogs, which offered as much 

 pleasure to their owners, as grey- 

 hounds did to others. And why 

 should the butcher be deprived of 

 his amusement more than the gen- 

 tleman ? The advocates of this bill 

 proposed to abolish bull-baiting, on 

 the score of its cruelty. It was 

 strange enough that such an argu- 

 ment should be employed by a set 

 of persons who had a most vexa- 

 tious code of laws for the protection 

 of their own amusements. He did 

 not mean, for the present, to con- 

 demn the game-laws : but when 

 gentlemen talked of cruelty, he must 

 remind them, that it belonged as 

 much to shooting as to bull-baiting; 

 nay, more so, as it frequently hap- 

 pened, that when one bird was 

 shot, a great many others went oflT 

 much wounded. Accidents to the 

 lookers-on did sometimes happen 

 at bull-baiting ; but, he was sure 

 that he had known more fatal ac- 

 cidents to arise, in the county of 

 Norfolk alone, by quarrels between 

 the game-invaders and the game- i 

 preservers, some being killed on - 

 the spot, and others hanged after- 

 wards for the murders, than ever I 

 happened from bull-baiting. On i 

 the whole, there did not appear to | 

 Mr. Windham to be any real evil ' 

 in the practice of bull-baiting ; that | 

 it would be trifling to legislate on { 



