146 BIPEDS AND QUADRUPEDS. 



than the higher born, if wanting such mind and 

 heart attributes that will ensure his being loved and 

 respected here, and, we are taught to hope, rewarded 

 hereafter. To such a man I trust this little essay 

 may be useful; but to make any appeal to feelings, or a 

 sense of propriety, where none exist, would, of course, 

 be worse than useless ; and such it would be to those 

 of whose pursuits and habits I am about to treat. 



There are a certain class of persons in all metro- 

 politan towns, and in most large manufacturing ones, 

 whose amusements (as I conclude they call them) 

 are of a nature that the legislature has, to a certain 

 extent, and in a certain number, rendered contrary 

 to law. 



Formerly, what were termed sports, were of a 

 very different character to what are recognised as such 

 at the present day; bull-baiting was a monstrous, bar- 

 barous, and demoralising pursuit, then permitted in 

 some places by actual charter. Such charter a better 

 feeling and a wiser legislation set at nought, and 

 very properly stopped. Cock-fighting, once patron- 

 ised by the aristocracy, has, to our credit, got in dis- 



