222 SPORTING STORIES 



out of place, in view of the fact that Cousin Jonathan will 

 have to take cock-fighting into serious consideration now 

 that he has elected to annex the Philippines. 



During the closing ten or fifteen years of the eighteenth 

 century and the first thirty of the nineteenth there was no 

 greater authority on the sport of cocking than the cele- 

 brated Doctor Bellyse of Audlem, a Cheshire village 

 between Nantwich and Stoke. A remarkable man was 

 this worthy doctor ; eminent in his own profession, he was 

 a walking polyglot on racing pedigrees from the Godol- 

 phin Arabian to Memnon, and no keener critic of coursing 

 ever rode behind the slipper at Altcar or Amesbury. But 

 it was as a cocker that he was especially famous. In that 

 respect he was like his neighbour and rival, the twelfth Earl 

 of Derby, who, if possible, loved a gamecock even better 

 than a racehorse, and was justly termed "the greatest 

 cocker that ever lived." 



But to return to our Doctor. His professional duties 

 forbade his going far afield in search of sport, and, keen as 

 he was upon horse-racing, he never in his life saw either a 

 Derby or St Leger run. But nothing could have induced 

 him to forego his annual week on the Roodee. On the 

 Saturday previous to the races, his yellow gig with his 

 fourteen-one Brown Tommy turned up as regularly as the 

 seasons themselves at the Hop Pole Inn ; and on the 

 Monday he sallied forth to the hotel-row, and received a 

 hearty welcome from all the lovers of " the Turf and the 

 Sod." Every one knew the blue coat with brass buttons, 

 the light-coloured kerseys and gaiters, the buff waistcoat, 

 the golden greyhound (gift of his friend, Lord Combermore), 

 which lent a tasteful finish to his snowy frill, and the pig- 

 tail just peeping from beneath a conical, low-crowned hat 

 which completed the attire from which he never varied. 

 The cockpit began at eleven, and the "go-in" ended soon 

 after one. Then, before a grand stand was known, the 

 Doctor was always to be seen on Tommy, armed with a 

 gigantic umbrella, in the middle of the Roodee, to watch 

 what the horses were doing all round. He held a belief 

 that there were " always so many fools on racecourses," 

 and hence he kept this huge " gamp," to shoot it in 



