144 
THE POULTRY BOOK. 
out a stentorian voice outside. ‘ Why, it’s only Jack Brown,’ said Green, when 
there was a general laugh, and, the door being unlocked, in rushed Brown. In 
consequence of the alarm, the duckwing cock was left standing by the body of his 
fallen foe. Brown looked at it, and, in a voice of anguish, cried out, ‘ You don’t 
mean to say that you’ve been and fought him ? Why, it’s Tom Challenger’s cock, 
and I shall have to pay five pounds for him.’ 
And so, sure enough, it was. Brown, it appeared, meant to exhibit at the poultry 
show a pen of duckwing game, and not thinking his own bird good enough to win, 
he wrote to Challenger, who has some of the best blood in England, for a bird. 
One w'as sent on approval, to be charged five pounds if he was kept. When Jack 
Brown got him, he liked his own better, as matching the hens; so left Challenger’s 
in his yard. Not knowing of this substitution, the getters-up of the fight had sent 
for Brown’s bird and got Challenger’s. So Jack has got to pay the money for him; 
and now he’s so knocked about that he’s not worth a crown. Everybody laughed 
when he heard this explanation except Jack, who said he should not have minded 
so much if he’d been present, as he should have backed Challenger’s cock for a 
^ fiver.’ Of the two other battles, Gillingham’s side won the first; but in the last 
fight, his bird, after receiving a good deal of punishment, turned tail and lost the 
main. 
‘‘ I dare say you will tell me that I qught to be ashamed of myself for going to 
such a demoralizing and brutalizing spectacle; but I think that there is something 
to be said for everything in this world, even for cock-fighting. 
“ On the general principle of common sense, let me ask 3^011, who are in the 
habit of eating veal that is half an hour in the process of slow killing, and of 
enjoying your hunted hare that has for fifty minutes been in an agony of mortal 
fear, until at last, exhausted and shrieking, with every fibre in its body quivering 
with intense excitement, and every air-cell in its lungs filled with blood and lymph, 
it sinks and receives a death-bite from hounds more merciful than their masters, — 
are you, I ask, the man to rail against allowing two gallant and noble animals to 
follow an impulse that has been implanted in them for a wise purpose, that you are 
too short-sighted or wilfully obtuse to see ? The natural instinct of gregarious 
animals is to fight, so that the stronger males should destroy the weaker and 
perpetuate the noblest race ; all, consequently, are provided (by Nature — ay, there’s 
the rub) with lethal weapons for this purpose. 
As I once heard asked, suppose you were to inquire of a game-cock, whether 
he Vv^ould rather have his cervical vertebrce dislocated by the hand of Betty the 
poultry maid, or take his chance of life in mortal combat with his gallant 
antagonist in the next farm-yard, can you doubt his answer ?” 
Being anxious that The Poultry Book should be deficient in no subjects 
connected with fowls, we applied to an experienced feeder for the pit for some 
information as to the mode in which the birds were fed to the high degree of 
condition that is necessary to their success in these combats. His reply is that 
