At Chalces in Eubea, and Media, were all great lovers of this sport. Athens, cock-fighting was kept up with a view of encouraging the youths of that city to valorous deeds; but it afterwards, both in that classical city, and other towns in Greece, degenerated to a mere common pastime. It appears that the Romans, who borrowed this from Greece, used quails, as well as cocks, for fighting. A regular row took place between two brothers, Bassianus Caracalla and Geta, sons of the emperor Septimus Severus, upon the merits of their quails and cocks. It is not clearly known when cock-fighting was first introduced in England, and the earliest notice of it is in the reign of the second Henry, when Fitz-Stephen describes it as the sport of school-boys on Shrove Tuesday. The practice was prohibited in Edward the Third's time; but was revived under the auspices of the bluff Harry the Eighth, who established the cock-pit at Whitehall. James the First was also greatly addicted to the sport; and it continued to flourish during the good old times of Queen Bess. By an act under the Protectorship the practice was a second time prohibited in 1654. Sherlock, in his letters to a friend at Paris, says, "It is worth your while to come to England, were it only to see an election and a cock-match. There is a celestial spirit of anarchy and confusion in these two scenes, that words cannot paint, and of which no countryman of yours can form even an idea." Thanks, however, to the Reform Bill, by the limitation of the days of elections, the scenes of reckless folly, extravagance, drunkenness, and bribery are considerably diminished; and to the honour of our country be it said, that the barbarous practice of cock-fighting is entirely discontinued. A Frenchman now visiting our island will find nobler sports than those noticed by the above-mentioned authority-sports which tend to elevate, not to brutalize, the human mind. There was a punishment called " basketing," frequently made use of in the cock-pit, at cock-fightings, where persons refusing or unable to pay their losings, were adjudged to be put in a basket, suspended over the pit, there to remain during the day's diversion. On the least demur to pay a bet, "Basket!" was vociferated in terrorem. Were this practice still carried on with respect to turf defaulters, it would have a considerable effect, and some half-dozen "swindlers" basketed at Goodwood, Epsom, Ascot, or Doncaster would be a sight well worth seeing, and might tend to discourage others. Great The inhabitants of Sumatra, in the East Indies, are devoted to cockfighting, and the arena for the sport is a spot on the level ground, or upon a stage erected and covered in. It is enclosed within a railing, into which none but the handlers and heelers are admitted. pains are taken in breeding and feeding; and birds of the same colour are never matched. Contrary to our laws, the owner is allowed to take up and handle his cock during the battle, to clear his mouth of blood, or his eye of a feather. When a cock is killed or runs, the other must have a sufficient pluck and vigour left to peck at him three times on his being held up to him for that purpose, or it becomes a drawn battle; and sometimes an "artful dodger" of a cock-feeder will place the head of the vanquished bird in such an uncouth situation as to scare the other, and prevent his gaining the victory. The cocks are never trimmed, but matched in full feather. The artificial spur used in the East resembles in shape the blade of a scimitar, and proves a more destructive weapon than the European spur. It has no socket, but is tied to the leg; and in the position of it the nicety of the match is regulated. In Sumatra, birds of superior weight and size are handicapped, and brought to an equality with their adversaries, by fixing the steel weapon so many scales of the leg above the natural spur, and thus obliging him to fight with a degree of disadvantage. It rarely happens that both cocks survive the combat. HAWKING. "Dost thou love hawking?" SHAKSPEARE. The ranges of stables throughout the metropolis, called mews, derived their name from Henry the Eighth having, in consequence of an accidental fire in 1534, at his stables in Bloomsbury, transferred his horses to the place where his ancestors had mued their hawks. Mewe, in its original application, signified a kind of cage, where hawks were kept when they mued, or changed their feathers; whence it was afterwards taken in a more extended sense, and signified a cage or place of confinement of any sort. In early days every royal palace had a meuse attached to it; the one at Westminster was the chief. By an ancient account I find, that in 1299 Edward the First was charged two shillings and fourpence, of that day's currency, for winter shoes, to Hawkins the keeper of the mews at Westminster :-" Hawkins custodi mutarum Regis apud Westm. pro calciamentis hiemalibus anni presentis, per compotum factum apud Westm. meuse. Anno 1229." In 1330 Ralph de Manners was made keeper. In 1377 the office was given to Sir Simon Burley, the accomplished favourite of Richard II., and seven years afterwards the celebrated Geoffrey Chaucer was appointed, among other offices, to be Clerk of the King's Works in the palace of Westminster, and in the mews at Charing, then an inconsiderable village. In "Troilus and Cressida," we find the following hawking simile : "And when that he came riding into the town, In 1390, Sir Baldwin de Beresford, Knight, occurs as Master of the Royal Falcons; and in 1400, the office of Master of the Mews, with a mansion called the Mewhouse annexed, was granted by a patent from Henry VI. to Richard Earl of Salisbury. Richard III., in the first year of his reign, gave the office to John Grey, of Wiltone. Charles the merry monarch granted the office of Keeper of the King's Falcons to his son by the kind-hearted Nell Gwynne, Charles, Duke of St. Albans, and the heirs male of his body. Thrace and Britain are the only two countries which, according to historians, encouraged hawking in ancient times. Pliny gives a somewhat obscure account of this sport in the former territory, but we have ample authority for stating that the primeval Britons had a great fondness for hawking. In after times, too, it was the principal diversion of the English; and in old paintings and tapestry the hawk on the hand was the criterion of nobility. Harold, afterwards king of England, when he went upon an important embassy to Normandy, is thus painted, as are many other monarchs and great men of centuries gone by; for in those days it was thought sufficient for noblemen to wind their horn, and to carry their hawk fair, and leave study and learning to the children of mean people. Great was the expense that attended this sport. In the reign of James the First, Sir Thomas Monson is said to have given one thousand pounds for a cast of hawks; and to this extravagance may be attributed the severe laws that were then enacted, Even the ladies were not without their falcons in earlier times; for upon an ancient tomb in the church of Milton, Dorsetshire, appears the consort of King Athelstane, with a hawk on her hand tearing a bird. This favourite diversion of our ancestors is now entirely fallen into disuse; and as it was a pastime in which the fairer part of the creation took pleasure in, we deeply lament its absence from our modern lists of sport. The very mention of hawking reminds one of the days of chivalry and romance, when men of high rank seldom appeared without their hawk and hound. Among the Anglo-Saxon nobility the training and flying of hawks was a principal amusement. Alfred the Great is said to have written a treatise upon the subject. When Edward the Third invaded France, he took his falconers with him. In this reign it was made felony to steal or conceal a hawk; nor were the game laws less stringent in that of Henry VII., when it was decreed that "any person taking from the nest, or destroying the eggs of a falcon or a goshawk, even in his own grounds, should suffer imprisonment for a year and a day, and be liable to a fine at the king's pleasure." The invention of gunpowder, however, put an end to falconry and although even in the present day we have a noble duke grand falconer to the Queen, the art venandi cum avibus no longer is patronized in our country. There is not a finer spectacle in the world than that which the Neva exhibits in winter. Carriages, sledges, an immense number of people on foot are continually crossing it, and thus forming a succession of objects always in action. Different parties of the humbler class, dispersed or together, are busy amusing themselves every one his own way. Here are long spaces surrounded with barriers to protect the skaters. There is an enclosure in which horses are exercised, as in a riding-school; and further off the crowd is attracted by a sledge-race. The space in which they run is circular, and about a mile in length. The artificial mountains made in ice are also another amusement for the people. They raise on the river a kind of mount, about thirty feet high, with a platform at the top, to which they ascend by a ladder. From the top of this to the bottom extends an inclined plane, covered with ice, which they contrive to make by planks on which pieces of ice are laid, and fixed by throwing water beneath them, which instantly freezes. From the place where the plane touches the ground they draw a road, two hundred toises in length, and four in breadth; they remove the snow, skirt it, as well as the mount, with boards of fir; then the sledges which are placed at the top of the mount set off like lightning, and are let go on the inclined plane, with such rapidity that these sledges advance still more than a hundred toises on the flat road drawn on the ice. Where this road ends there is commonly another mount of ice, in every respect like that which they had just gone over; and descending from one they immediately ascend another by the impetus with which they have been propelled. The greatest practice is necessary for this exercise, and skill is required to preserve the balance, particularly when they are being hurled down the inclined plane, for the smallest false movement would occasion a dangerous fall. Boys and young men amuse themselves with sliding from the top to the foot of the mounts, usually on one skate, as they find it easier to preserve their balance on one leg than on both. BULL-BAITING. "How hath he been baited?" SHAKSPEARE. The sports of bull and bear-baiting were anciently the delight of the English, and their passion for these brutal amusements may be attributable to the example of their conquerors the Romans, whose imperial city abounded with amphitheatres, many of which were devoted to the combats of wild beasts; and for this purpose no expense was spared to furnish them from all parts of the world. It must be admitted that the tastes of our ancestors had sadly degenerated from that of the Romans, for the former contented themselves with chaining a bull or a bear to a stake, to be worried by dogs, whereas the latter were wont to pair a variety of heterogeneous animals for the combat. Sometimes we hear of a tiger matched with a lion; sometimes a lion with a bull, a bull with an elephant, a rhinoceros with a bear; and very frequently bipeds as well as quadrupeds were engaged, for we read of men denominated Bestiarii taking part in these combats. A DERBY MISTAKE. BY RAMBLER. "Do you go the Derby?" Now, Mr. Reader, just imagine such a question being put to you, and then say what punishment should be inflicted on the querist. For such a monster there is not any degree of torture severe enough no, not even the sentence of a week's hard staring at the world's wonders in the Paxton Palace. Go to the Derby, indeed! Of course, everybody with a crown at his disposal makes his way to Epsom Downs. : "Oh! what a row, a rumpus, and a rioting !" Here meet those who praise the road and adopt it, and those who do the "railing" and love the locomotive. What a motley group! Carriages, carts, caravans, barouches, breaks, britschkas, dog-carts, go-carts, drags, omnibuses, waggons, one and all are pressed into service. Look at them discharging their cargoes, and after witnessing such a scene is it not natural to supposethat London must be positively empty? Look at the preparations for creature comforts, and listen to the jovial sounds emanating from every quarter, all for your amusement. There are the sable serenaders, with their choice collection of nigger melodies, from the plaintive" Mary Blane" to "He has got no wool on the top of his head;" morceaux given with that delicacy of feeling and high artistic manner calculated to impress foreign visitors with a correct idea of the vocal excellence of the real British Ethiopians. There are jugglers, showmen, gipsies; sailors that have never sniffed the briney; soldiers that have scorned to parade themselves; countrymen from Seven Dials; blind beggars, whose eyesight, by some wonderful dispensation, returns immediately after the races. But all these distinguished characters must retire into their native obscurity by the side of the juvenile Roscius and a respected gentleman, who, it is to be supposed, lays claim to the paternal honours, which add little lustre or bloom to his appearance; for a more lugubrious visage it would be hard to look upon. His professional duties are, unquestionably, of too laborious a nature for him to live without excitement, and it is this that compels him to invoke the aid of a spirit known in vernacular as gin. He ap proaches, and begs your attention to a strong dramatic scene between him and the precocious youth. After venting his indignation with Shaksperian effect, the boy, who is attired in a black velvet tunic, to which the expressive adjective seedy may be applied, a pair of greasy shorts, and a cap with a prodigious feather, opens by protesting with demoniac vehemence against the vile insinuations thrown out by his enraged and inebriated adversary, and concludes in a mellifluous strain, considerably enhanced by a slight stutter, exclaiming :-" A-bo-ove hall, kee-ee-eep War-wic-ic-kick th-from my th-i-i-ght!" After this grand historical display, which stands out in bold relief to the readings of Mrs. Fanny Kemble, the denounced one hands round the hat for the contributions of the admirers of "native talent," and then hastens to seek "fresh fields" for the exhibition of genius, and a little "cream of the valley" to brighten the intellect. "But what about the race?" gently insinuates Mr. Reader. Why the fact is, Mr. Dorling is greatly to be blamed for having put forward the clocks, for I feel certain that the Epsom time, and not the race, was too fast. "But the Derby-the Derby." Well, then, the fact-the fact is, I was ta-king my-stroll over the Downs to see all that was to be seen-and I am certain it was Mr. Dorling's error "But the race?" When I returned to the Grand Stand, judge my astonishment and indignation to learn that " TEDDINGTON HAD WON THE DERBY!" |