Toulmin
and Vincent-whose business gave its name to Cockspur Street, London-is now a lost one. The greatest makers of steel spurs were (in the past) Singleton of Dublin, Kendrick of Redditch, Ross of Bloxwich, and J. Watling of Exeter. Good steel cockspurs are still made, but the old ones are more valued. They may be recognised, as in the case of silvers, by the initials made in the colours of the owners, and embroidered with crests or initials. Many historical examples are still in existence.
Bags of commoner material, boxes, and baskets are requisite for conveying birds to the place where a main is to be fought. In dubbing, the half-moon shape of the comb should be preserved.
Feeding, Training, and Matching.- Young birds at between 5 and 8 months are PIT TICKET.
THE COCK Pit. of the makers stamped on the heel of the socket. Spurs vary in length from I inch to 3, according to the style of fighting exhibited by individual cocks. Beside spurs, muffles (or miniature boxing-gloves) for sparring birds in order to test them or improve their wind, saws for shortening the natural spur, scissors for dubbing or removing the comb and wattles from young stags to prevent their suffering by getting these torn when fighting, markers for rendering the identification of birds easy, and bags for conveying birds into the pit, are all necessary. These bags should be After Hogarth. taken from the runs, where at this age they co commence to quarrel and fight among themselves, dubbed, marked, and sent out to walk on suitable farms, in the same way as foxhound and greyhound puppies. There they remain for perhaps a twelvemonth, and are then taken up and prepared for fighting.
They are medicined, penned, and fed for a fortnight or three weeks, each "feeder " (who answers to the trainer of racehorses or greyhounds) having his own secret system of preparation. The birds are sparred and exercised during this time, and "sweated" by the placing of cloths of various thicknesses over their pens in order to reduce them to the requisite weight.
After weighing and matching, three days are allowed for the feeders by the use of cockbread (for which there are many quaint and secret recipes) to bring them up to the top of their form, and make them ready for battle. Among the most famous feeders of the past were Beastal, Sant, Potter, Fautless Gilliver (who still survives as a monogenarian), Nash, Varley, Woodcock, and Martin. Before matching, the birds were "cut out of feather," their hackles, wings, and tails being shortened, so that their adversary should obtain no unfair advan- [OBSOLETE SPORT each battle, and 5,000 guineas the main; but 5 or IO guineas the battle and 50 or 100 the main is now more usual. More birds are "shown" than the main quota, and these unmatched birds are fought in bye-battles at 2 guineas the battle. In these days of mains of “II aside, to show 13 birds," the stake is sometimes £50 aside, the winner of the odd battle taking the stake. For a less stake than this it would not repay a cocker to fight under modern conditions. Bye-battles in these abbreviated mains are generally for a guinea a side. The birds are weighed three days before the main, a maximum and minimum weight After H. Alken.] COCKFIGHTING. tage by laying hold of the long feathers while using his spurs.
Mains. These are of various sorts. In the Welsh main sixteen birds are matched one against the other according to weight, and fought in rounds and ties, as in coursing, the eight winners in the first round fighting again in the second, and so on, so that the final survivor must fight four battles.
The ordinary main may be either a "long main" of sixty-one battles, or a "short main" of twenty-one battles, the one taking a week, and the other two or three days to fight, though in these degenerate times a still shorter main of eleven birds that can be concluded in a day of two "ingoes," with an interval for refreshments, is more common. Proper "articles " are usually signed for a main in the shape of a quasilegal document regularly witnessed, the conditions being so many guineas each battle, and so many the odd or main. Mains have been fought in the past for 1,000 guineas [By courtesy of Messrs Robson and Co. (which was formerly between 3lb. 6oz. and 4lb. 8oz., but is now considerably higher) being agreed upon, as many birds as fall within one or two ounces of each other being fought in the main, the extra cocks fighting the bye-battles. At the same time, the marks of each cock are taken and duly entered on match-bills, which are subsequently compared. Cocker's shorthand (the origin of racing and coursing shorthand words) is used in making out the matchbills. Thus an entry reading :- Ran B. B.R. rd. eyd. hi. cl. co. bk. Erd. bk. bek. beys. rt. ot. 4.10.3 would mean that the cock was a ravenbreasted black-red with red eyes, a high clear-cut comb, black beak, blue legs, marked in the outside web of the right foot with the owner's mark, and weighing 4lb. Iooz. 3gr.
The rule is that the main shall begin by fighting the lightest pair of cocks first, proceeding upwards to the end, that every OBSOLETE SPORT] lighter pair may fight earlier than those that are heavier. This is one of the Westminster rules.
On the day of the main, the first pair of cocks is heeled by having the silvers or steels fastened to their legs over their natural spurs, a great art-and, having been placed on the mark, the battle begins, and is usually over in three minutes at the longest, sometimes in as few seconds. The cocks fight for their own pleasure, not for that of their owners, no human being possessing the power to make two reluctant birds engage. Accusations of cruelty against the sport thus fall incontinently to the ground; and, indeed, cocking may truly be described as the least cruel of all sports, everything being arranged to prevent the slightest unavoidable suffering to either of the combatants. One bird drops dead instantaneously, and the other-if wounded at all-can be speedily and painlessly healed, especially if the battle be fought in silver.
The "Battle Royal" serves the purpose of "cutting-up" those cocks that are too large to be fought in regular mains. Here the birds are unweighed, and are all turned out on both sides into the pit together. The side that owns the surviving bird wins the stake-money. Private matches are also made between owners of favourite birds; but in most mains confederacies of owners give and accept the challenges of other confederacies. L. C. R. CAMERON.
Bibliography. Any one wishing to know more about the sport of cockfighting should consult the following books: The Royal Pastime of Cockfighting, by R. H. (1709, reprinted 1899); The Cocker, by W. Sketchley (1814, reprinted as part of The Game Fowl-1903); Cocking and its Votaries, by S. A. Taylor; The Old English Game Fowl, by Herbert Atkinson, 1899; The Life of John Harris, by H. A. (1910); and articles in The British Legacy, Hoyle's Games, The School of Arts, Blaine's Rural Sports (edition 1840), Bee's Sporting Dictionary, Silk and Scarlet, by "The Druid," and (for America) The Game Fowl, by Dr. Cooper, and The Cocker's Manual, by Gray, both published in New York.
FOOTBALL IN THE STREETS.- Amongst the Shrovetide attractions in many towns, a football match in the streets used to rank very high. Now that peaceful citizens are beginning strenuously to resent a faction fight only sanctioned by custom, it is to be feared that these great contests have become wholly obsolete. The example of Dorking shows that the most stolid conservatism, and the keenest love of such football as unnumbered sides and undefined rules provide, are both unavailing against the yet more stolid resistance of an unhistorical police force. On Shrove Tuesday it was the custom, after a sufficiency of cock-throwing and goose-riding, to start the great mêlée.
Usually the town was conveniently split geographically into two sections, and the rules were simple. The ball had, by fair means or foul, to be carried to some prominent landmark in the rear of the enemy's quarters. Whether it were carried, thrown, or kicked there mattered not at all; but it was usually found out that straightforward pushing was of little avail when each side ran into three or even into four figures.
Strategic retreats and flank attacks were adopted, and stories were handed down how the defences had been forced by swimming rivers, penetrating drains, and even, on one occasion, by breaking through a house wall.
As the ball was probably absent in nine out of ten of the places where the contest raged, and would be in any case invisible to the majority, the game fairly incurred the often repeated censure upon its "being meeter for the laming than the making able" of those that played thereat.
By a wise provision, the ball, at the beginning of this century, was usually filled with shavings, and thereby better able to resist rough usage; but even thus there are instances on record in which the Ulysses of one side has reversed the Trojan horse method by stripping the case of its interior, and carrying it in his own bosom within his opponents' lines. دو Of recent years, however, as local feeling has grown less intense, and the growth of towns in one direction or another has spoiled the meaning of such old rallying cries as "St. James and "St. Philip," the fashion of the game has changed; to a large extent the charge is true that tradition is made a mere pretext for rowdyism. Instead of the one ball round which the contest centred, half a dozen or more may be seen, driven in any and every direction by the band behind it, who prefer taking their own line to meeting the organised force of others.
PALL MALL. -A paragraph is perhaps justifiable which recalls the famous game of pall mall, once the fashion of a brilliant Court, and, from what one can learn of it, a game that deserved to survive better than many another which has passed the test of time. Put briefly, and therefore, of course, inaccurately, it may be defined as golf played with a croquet mallet down an elongated skittle alley. The tools and implements were, by a happy chance, found in a house that was being pulled down in Pall Mall in 1845, and are now preserved in the British Museum. The head of the mallet is curved, and its ends are both sloped, the plane running back towards the shaft. The balls, which in the only surviving examples are of boxwood, are about twelve inches in circumference.
The aim was, as in golf, to drive the ball over the course in the fewest possible strokes, but instead of holing out, it was necessary to drive under hoops which were set down the alley. From the scanty records of the game, it would appear that one feat required was to drive the ball through a ring of no great diameter, suspended, as would appear from one illustration, at the height of some eight or ten feet in the air. It is hard not to suspect that the artist, like others since his time, had trusted to imagination rather than actual inspection, for, apart from the enormous difficulty of driving a ball through the ring, there would be the absolute impossibility of persuading one's opponent that it had gone through and not outside. In the days when swords were worn, the closest friendships might have been permanently severed. In his course, the pall mall enthusiast had less variety than the golf player. With a floor of hard beaten sand, "dressed with powdered cockle-shells," says Pepys, there was every chance of a good lie, and the probability of being bunkered behind a hoop wire was extremely small. The alley itself seems to have varied, in the same fashion as a links, in its dimensions, but that at St. James's was about 800 yards long, and there were very few hoops in it, giving a very fair opportunity for a successful drive, considering the shape of the mallet. Side walls seem to have existed at Whitehall, but one cannot be sure whether they were a necessary feature or a luxury.