342 



A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



By Henry Alken (1821). 



Fashionable Cockfigkting. 



horse upstairs to the 

 topmost room in Mrs. 

 FitzHerbert's house, 

 and had to have it 

 dragged down again 

 by the main force of 

 two blacksmiths, so 

 much did the artful 

 animal appear to 

 relish its new quarters. 

 The cock-fighting 

 at which Mr. Tre- 

 gonwell Frampton 

 proved so successful, 



lasted for nearly a century and a-half after his days as a fashionable sport. As late 



as 1830, a room in Westminster, where the Privy Council held their sittings, was 



commonly called "the cockpit" (in Greville's Memoirs, and in "The Times" for 



January 29, 1801), because it was on the site where Charles II. had often watched 



a main at Whitehall ; and in nearly every Race Course of the eighteenth century the 



cockpit was as essential an attraction as the E.O. Tables. All bone and muscle ; 



with his large, quick eye, his big and crooked beak, the gamecock seemed built by 



Nature for a fight, and 



animated by an almost 



unique passion for the 



extermination of the 



males of his own 



species. Arming him 



with spurs only ended 



quicker what might 



otherwise have been a 



cruelly protracted 



struggle ; the pugilist, 



in fact, became a 



swordsman. Special 



breeds were eagerly 



By Henry A Iken (1821). 



The Beauties of Bull-baiting. 



