A Modest Commendation of Cock-Fighting

Before animal rigJean Leon Gerome's The Cockfight (1846)hts activists squelched all of our wholesome fun, mankind enjoyed moral and character-building recreational activities, the greatest of which was cock-fighting. Yes, we moderns have ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts, but these paltry spectacles cannot match the "to the death" level of commitment found in those courageous and consensual cocks of olde. We watch with horror as mankind's God-appointed dominion over the creatures of earth and sea is daily being curtailed by moneygrubbing legislators. So, if only for a moment, and while we still can, let us revel in the majesty of past glories. Imbibe and be warmed by the beautiful language and the impeccable logic of 1827. Let its truth and irrefutability offer you sweet succor. Its commendation may be modest, but it carries the force of hard Truth. One hundred and eighty-three years cannot dim the light of righteousness!

- J. S.

This beats cock-fighting.

                                          -- Yorkshire Proverb

THE nation has of late years become so refined in its taste, so fastidious in its morals, and so tender-hearted in its amusements, that there are very few of the enjoyments of its ancestors, which it does not proscribe as either vulgar, indelicate, or inhumane. And yet I have a great notion that the Englishman of two hundred years ago was as much alive to every manly, generous, and compassionate feeling, as his more polished descendant of eighteen hundred and twenty-seven. Our masters of arts no longer claim the exclusive privilege of playing at taw in their cloisters and colleges; but it is not quite certain, that their present pastimes at Chesterton and Barnwell are a whit more intellectual. The coney-barrow of Lincolns Inn is now covered by smooth lawns and stately terraces; but it may be doubted whether the living members of that learned society acquit themselves more innocently within its precincts than their defunct predecessors, who formerly shot with bow and arrow at the coneys which frequented it. Our country squires are no longer the devoted admirers of cudgel-playing and cock-fighting; but I am not quite satisfied, that cudgel-playing is a more savage amusement than boxing, or that cock-fighting is more productive of animal suffering than the multitudinous massacre of a grand battu-day. We, in our short-sighted wisdom, deem ourselves superior in everything to our progenitors, and ridicule, without measure, their pastimes and pursuits, forgetting, that in a few years another generation will hustle us off the stage, and will revenge our treatment of our ancestors, by treating us with similar indignity.

I have been led to these reflections by the perusal of some old and scarce tracts in the British Museum, on “the Royal pastime of Cock-fighting,” and by the recollection of Colonel Martin’s attempt in the last Parliament to obliterate it for ever from the catalogue of British amusements. Who that has seen the poetic colouring in which that pastime is painted in those pamphlets, and the important political advantages, which are predicated as its results, would ever believe it to be the same recreation, which Colonel Martin has painted in characters of blood and has denounced as no less injurious to private morals than to public happiness? For my own part, I believe the Colonel to have meant rightly on this subject, as on most others; but, as there is a good deal to be said on the other side, and as my black-letter friends state their case very ably, I will let them speak for themselves, and will leave the public to decide between the cock-fighter of the seventeenth and the animal-protector of the nineteenth century. That I have formed an opinion myself upon this important question, I do not mean to conceal; on the contrary, I think it very probable that I shall trouble the world with it, before I come to the conclusion of the present article. The first tract, to which I have been alluding, is printed in black letter, bears the date of 1607, and is entitled, “The Commendation of Cocks and Cock-fighting, wherein it shewed that Cock-fighting was before the coming of Christ.” Now, it is quite clear, that, if Mr. George Wilson, the forgotten, and therefore ill-treated author of this treatise, has established the proposition, which he lays down in his title-page, he has done sufficient to win to his side of the question all those potent, grave, and reverend signors, who think we ought to treat with reverence the custom of ages. Let us therefore see whence he derives, and how he marshals his proofs:—

“Do but look,” says he, “into Plutarch’s books, called the Lives of the Romans, and you shall there find, in the story of Marcus Antonius, that the Soothsayer consulted him to beware and take heed of Caesar, because his cocks did always lose when they fought with Caesar’s. And I also read,” (the varlet does not state where— but with a writer of credit, it is immaterial,) “that Themistocles, that worthy, valiant, and time-eternized conqueror, when he besieged the famous and great country Dalmatia, did use cock-fighting: for, at his beginning and first entrance into that enterprise, before he gave any assault or offer of battery against the country, he commanded that two cocks of the kind should be brought unto him, and set down to fight before him, in the open view of all his valiant soldiers, whom he earnestly requested, most seriously, to behold and mark the battle;” with intent, as Mr. Wilson afterwards observes, of exhorting them “not to shew more cowardice and faint-hearted timorousness than those silly fowls of the air had shewed.”

The exhortation, however, was needless; for, after they had seen the undaunted and admirable courage with which these stout-hearted creatures fought, “they deemed every hour to be a day long, until they had buckled with, and defeated, their boasting adversaries.”

But the champions of cock-fighting do not allow the proof of its antiquity to rest entirely upon this foundation. A “Lover of the Sport, and a friend to Military Discipline,” who wrote near the close of the seventeenth century under the anonymous title of R. H., adduces evidence to prove that the fighting cock was one of the principle gods of the Syrians and ancient Greeks; and contends, on the authority of Pomponius Mela, that the Roman Empire did not begin to decline, until cocking had fallen into disrepute among its governors. He goes even still further, and proves that the Emporer Severus was not able to conquer Great Britain, until he had rendered his principal officers passionately emulous of glory, by exhibiting a main of cocks every day before them. Now, with all due deference to R. H., whom I delight on most occasions to honour, I think that he was singly deficient in patriotism, in thus pointing out to our enemies an easy mode of bringing us under their subjection. However, as a century and a half has elapsed without their benefiting by his shameful inadvertence, I trust that they will still continue to neglect the lesson which his historical knowledge afforded them. But, be that as it may, we are bound, if R. H. be right, to encourage cockfighting among ourselves by every possible recompense, and to discourage it, even on pain of war to the knife, among all foreign nations. Our ancestors may be forgiven for having permitted an army of cockfighters to assemble on our shores; but we, their descendants, with their fate before our eyes, should deserve a more galling slavery than that which befell them, if we were to permit another such army to assemble for our annoyance in any portion of the habitable globe.

Having thus substantiated the antiquity of the practise, my authors proceed, with all due gravity, to establish its propriety in a religious and moral point of view. Indeed, Mr. Wilson descants upon this part of the subject so much like a sturdy theologian, that I cannot help thinking, that he must have been as great in pulpit as he was in the cock-pit. One of his chapters commences thus:— “It is written in the first book of Moses, called Genesis, that God gave unto man sovereignty, rule and dominion over the fishes in the sea, over the fowls of the air, and over everything that he had made; and behold! it was exceeding good, and appointed unto man for to do him homage and to serve him:” –and that, “not only for clothing and sustenance for his body, but also for recreation and pastime to delight his mind.” Now, of all recreations for the mind, Mr. Wilson assumes as an incontrovertible position, that cock-fighting is by far the first; and, having made that assumption, proceeds to shew, that honest recreation, so far from being prohibited, is encouraged by Holy Scripture. He quotes the 104th Psalm—“There is that Leviathan, whom thou hast made to take his pastime in the deep waters,”—and infers from it, that, if fishes be permitted to take their pastime in the sea, “much more may man, which is the king of creatures, take his pleasures upon earth, as with cockfighting, hawking, hunting, and the like.” Now this doctrine, after it has stood the test of a century, appeared so palatable to the excellent R. H., that he adopted it as his own, and dismissed with ineffable contempt certain arguments, which were used in his day, and are still repeated in our own, to prove the wickedness and unlawfulness of this amusement. Nay more, he supposed those arguments to have all the weight which their propounders deemed them to possess, and then challenged his contemporaries and countrymen to say, “whether cocking was to be laid aside, because some did abuse the greatest blessings?” I give answer to this question in his own words, first, because it shews the philanthropic tenor of his disposition, and secondly, because I am convinced that any alteration I might make in them would only tend to prove how unequal I am to wield the arms of such an Achilles. “No—by no means—but rather, where we have one pit now, let us have two for the time to come; and, as we ought, let us improve this exercise for the general good of mankind, to which end it was undoubtedly intended.” An exhortation, in which the great Machrie, the Coryphaeus of the feeders of Edinburgh in the seventeenth century, cordially joined, when he prayed that “in cock-war, village might be engaged against village, city against city, kingdom against kingdom, nay, the father against the son, until all wars in Europe, wherein so much Christian blood is spilled, should be turned into that of the innocent pastime of cocking.” Oh! Much wished for consummation! Why has it its arrival been so long and so unfortunately delayed!

The arguments which I have just quoted are sufficient to convince every genuine country gentleman of the old school that cock-fighting, being a practice which has descended to us from remote antiquity, and a pastime, which in itself is most unobjectionable, ought not to be put down by the innovating spirit of modern Liberalism. But there are other reasons why the game-cock should be an object of affectionate attention to all those who value, as they ought, the privileges of the aristocracy. The game-cock must have good blood in his veins; for, if he have not, it is in vain to expect that he will ever win spurs for himself, or prizes for his owner. He should be sent to the pot rather than to the pit, and should be stewed for the table, rather than be stived or trained for the battle. “Your half-bred caystrell, craven cock,” says Mr. Wilson, “is to be despised:—as soon as he receives any hurt, God be with your game; for he is gone,—the house is too hot,—the fight too fierce,—and the danger too great for him to endure it.” But on your full-bred cock, be he a pile, a black-red, a ginger, a furnace, or a custard, you may bet broad gold to grey groats, that he will not fly from his antagonist, whilst he has life, and that he will “look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame,” when he is compelled to resign it. Besides, it is quite evident, from the impatient manner in which he brooks any undue assumption of equality, that he pays a proper respect to the gradations of rank, and is, in point of fact, a warm admirer of absolute power. He is likewise a warm friend to the Protestant ascendancy; for, as Mr. Machrie observes, from the Links of Leith, he was an early preacher of reformation, and convinced Peter, the first Pope, of his Holiness’s fallibility. Can then any country gentleman, who venerates high blood, who cherishes the monarchical spirit, and who loves Anti-Catholic principles, calmly behold the game-cock placed, as it were, out of the pale of society, by a measure which would make him bid an eternal farewell to his pugnacious occupation, knowing, as he does, that this bird is friendly to three objects, which he must ever have at heart, whilst he lives, and breathes, and has his being?

But why should I confine my address to one portion of the community, when I can produce, from these inestimable pamphlets, such cogent arguments in defense of cock-fighting, as will convince a man, even against his will, of the impropriety of checking it? Under the wise regulations of our ancestors, the cock-pit was not less a school for valour than for truth, and modesty, and morality, and every other manly and high-spirited virtue. “In such places,” says Mr. Wilson, “there is no collusion, deceit, fraud, or cozening tolerated; nor any used, as in most other games and pastimes customarily there is;—neither are there any brawlings or quarrels suffered, but all men must use civil and good behavior, what degree or calling soever they be of. And also it is there decreed and set down, as an irrevocable order, that no man, by cursing, banning, or swearing, shall blaspheme God, or take his name in vain; but that all of them shall speak modestly, and deal according to truth; and whosoever shall dissent from it, or do otherwise than is appointed, must undergo the punishment” which the rest of the company may prescribe. The stupidest Whig that ever walked between Westminster Hall and Temple Bar will see with half an eye the advantages resulting from such orderly regulations; but these are by no means the only benefits which the lover of cocking is likely to derive from his attendance in the pit. Mr. Wilson, whose testimony is placed far above all dispute by his long experience, informs us in various parts of his performance, that we may learn there many other good lessons, whereof we may make profitable use, provided that we know how to apply them rightly; as, first of all, “to be valorous, and fight courageously against our enemies; and, as the game-cocks do, never to give over, but either get the victory, or die valiantly”: secondly, “to be vigilant and watchful as they are, and to avoid slothfulness, which generally reigns so much in us;” thirdly, “to be constant and loving to our wives, as they are to their hens, and to be tender and careful over them, which are so nearly and dearly bound to us by the law of God, as to be one flesh, one mind, one faith, and one troth;” and, last of all, “to stretch forth ourselves, and to strain our voices, as they do, in uttering of God’s affairs,” and in noting the soft and silent, but painfully rapid march of time into eternity.

Such being the case, it is not surprising that my friend R. H.—let me give him, though unknown, this title, since I would have haunted the cock-pit till I had gained his friendship, had I lived in his day—should wish so innocent an exercise of cocking as to be encouraged by act of Parliament. He contends, that a better expedient cannot be found to “rouse the drowsy courage, and thaw the frozen valour of a people, lulled with soft ease, and degenerated into base and servile effeminacy.” Like Milton, he laments, with great indignation, over the evil days in which his lot had been cast, and over the rapid decline in the national spirit which had been produced by the open riot and luxury of his age. “For want of cudgel-playing and cock-fighting,” he observes, “men have now taken to drinking and dancing and wear their swords more for show than service. A basket-hilt with a blade three inches broad, such as our valiant ancestors had wont to wear, is now derided by the effeminate fops of our days, who choose to hazard their lives and fortunes in the fatal arms of a diseased mistress, rather than venture a push at single rapier, or take a turn at back-sword with a skilful antagonist, where, with their flaming blades, they might hew bright honour from the errors of their adversaries, and gild their memories with applause in immortal death.” His exertions to bring his countrymen back to better practices, are visible enough in this pamphlet; and I have myself little doubt, that one half of Marlborough’s victories were owing to the pains which he took, as well by writing in the study, as by word of mouth in the cockpit, to inspire his young companions with his own love for danger, and his own heroic contempt for blood and wounds. He tells us, that he was convinced by long experience in the world, that there never yet was perfidious man, or a real coward, that loved cocking. “Nay,” adds he, “so dissonant are cocking and cowardice, that it is morally impossible for a coward unfeignedly to love cocking;” and therefore, some timorous souls, to avoid the odium attendant on the last, have even feigned a liking for the first:—just as the skin-flint, who has not soul enough to get drunk at home, is always boasting of the glorious carouses which he has had elsewhere; or as the half-starved Irish student, who has never risen above the level of his laundress in his amours, is always pluming himself in company on the gracious favours he has received from duchesses and countesses whom he never saw,

As the advantages resulting from cockfi ghting are so numerous and undeniable, it follows almost as a matter of course, that many wise and valiant princes must have greatly encouraged it. Our own Henry the Eighth caused a most sumptuous and stately pit to be erected in Whitehall, where he often disported himself with this amusement among his most notable and loving subjects; and I am not clear, that the ministers of the crown have not been guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour, in eclipsing the gaiety of the nation, by converting it into an arena for vexatious litigants and wrangling lawyers. The great Lion of the North, who purchased immortality by death on the plains of Lutzen, told the King of Denmark, when he went to rescue him out of the talons of German power, that he had no substantial cause for fear, since he was well assured that the Imperialists had “given up cock-fighting, and were wholly devoted to effeminate dancing and enervating drunkenness— two infallible signs of a sinking people.” An observation befitting the sagacity of the great Gustavus, and deserving to be written in letters of gold with a quill plucked from the wing of a victorious game-cock! The great Hector of Europe, as a contemporary writer called Louis the Fourteenth of France, complained of nothing so much as the want of cocking in this country, and attributed the decline of his fortunes to the martial spirit generated by it on our side of the Channel. Christian, King of Denmark, who defended his capital so nobly against the power of Sweden, saw in a very clear light the advantage which a soldier derived from attending upon cock-fights. “See here,” said he one day, as he held his court in his cock-pit—“see here, how the cocks advance one against another—sometimes retiring, sometimes pursuing,—sometimes in one form and sometimes another. What variety of strokes! What diversity of fight is here shown in one battle! Were I to lead an army against the grand Infidel of Constantinople, I would choose none but cockers for my commanders, none but lovers of the sport for my common soldiers:” A hint, which the three great Powers will do well to remember, when they appoint a commander to the combined squadron, which they have sent to cruise amid the isles and isthmuses of immortal Greece.

I have now demonstrated the lawfulness and antiquity of this pastime. Here then I might rest. But no—there is more left behind; and whilst I have anything to tell in exaltation of this subject, I cannot consent to sit down in silence. All men, says Dr. Harris, would be happy if they knew how, not happy for moments and miserable for years, but happy from the commencement to the close of their earthly career. It is clear, that Dr. Harris knew nothing of cock-fighting, or he would have told his readers, that, if ever anything in the world were delectable and pleasant to the heart of man, and calculated to beget in him “mirthful jovisuance and recreation,” it was and is this excellent sport. For it has a hidden mystery about it, whereby those who affect it seem, like the sage of old, “to tread in air and contemplate the sun,” whilst, “those who, of their own accord, or by any other man’s instigation, do refrain from it, are melancholy, sad, and disconsolate, lovers of gloom and solitude, ever musing on the worst things, and not on the best, and imagining evil rather than good.” Mr. Wilson declares that this has been proved to be neither fable nor fiction, but undoubted truth, by the experience of many individuals of good account, to their hindrance and grief, and to his exceeding great sorrow. He therefore advises all men, who take delight in this delicious pastime, never to forsake or leave it, or to alienate themselves from it, so long as it shall please the Almighty to bless and prosper them; and proclaims for his own part, that “he is resolved, so long as life and health shall last, and God shall lend his limbs ability and strength to bear him, never to abstain from it, when conveniently he may be at it, nor ever consent to give it over, while fortune permits him to participate in its enjoyment.”

The foregoing resolution, which is at once pious and philosophical, illustrates, aptly enough, the spirit of devout resignation, with which the genuine cock-fighter always submits himself to “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” But a stronger illustration of it, if necessary, may be found in the few, but memorable lines, which the inimitable R.H. wrote in dedication of his work to the right worshipful, his very good friend, Sir T. Urquhart, Knight. It appears from them, that, as the knight’s valiant grandfather lay bleeding from a mortal wound on the disastrous field of Naseby, “a fatal pit to many a gallant cock, a bloody spot of ireful ground, on which the fierce Bellona’s savage shambles stood,”—he consoled himself, like a gallant cavalier, with the recollections of a long life spent in loyalty and cock-fighting, and quailed not in spirit for a moment, though surrounded by scenes of difficulty and danger, and in the presence of approaching death. “My King,” said he, “and a good cock I have ever loved; and like a good cock, in my sovereign’s service, I gladly now expire.” What a memorable speech to be proud of! What a laudable example for them to emulate! And emulate it they did; for neither his sons, nor his sons’ sons, degenerated from the spirit of their progenitor. Peace to his ashes:—I trust that he is now enjoying in the Elysian fields, among the cock-fighters of antiquity, that felicity which is reserved for all those who have enrolled themselves, by their illustrious actions, among the benefactors of their country.

I forget who it was that first observed, that peace had its triumphs as well as war; but I claim the merit of first observing that the habits of the cock-fighter qualify him equally for the triumphs of both. Who enjoys more heartily the comforts of a rural life, “topping souls, and rich October liquor?” Who ingratiates himself sooner in the hearts of his friends and tenantry than the man who, in studying his own pleasures, administers also to theirs? Who stands in less need of keepers and spring-guns, and game laws to guard his preserves than the man who has them protected by the affection of his humble neighbors? In short, who practices hospitality more kindly or more extensively than the man, who can exhibit at his board the numerous trophies which he has gained by his success in the cockpit? Oh! for a restoration of those golden days, when such success was estimated at its proper value! Then we had few poor, and still fewer poor laws: then we heard nothing of Emigration reports and Emigration Committees: then we deemed it an ill-boding sign to see our able-bodied peasantry quitting in crowds their native country: then we had little vice to suppress, and no society for the suppression of it: then we feared God, honoured the King, obeyed his ministers, and sought to reach heaven by a strict performance of our duty on earth, and not by tying ourselves, like wisps of hay, to the tail of some gigantic and aeropleustic kite.

I have now nearly concluded; and if what I have already said be not sufficient to deter the Lords and Commons of England from prohibiting this ancient, and venerable, and profitable amusement, I despair of being able to produce that result by saying more. Let them not, I humbly implore them, be led away by the canting philosophy, the pretending and pretended humanity, of the day. Let them recollect that cock-fighting has been part of the system under which the country has become the terror, the envy, and admiration of the world; and let them reflect long and deeply, before they venture to lay sacrilegious hands on this royal pastime. One rash enactment may destroy, in a few years, that manly spirit which it often requires centuries to generate in a nation. Our ancestors loved the cock-pit, and were not brutalized by frequenting it; why then should we be prohibited, as Colonel Martin desires, from even approaching it? I have heard no sufficient reason, as yet, assigned for such a prohibition, though I have no doubt that there are many abler arguments to be produced against it, than either I have expressed, or am in any way able to express sufficiently. Wherefore, I will conclude at once, by declaring with Mr. Wilson, to whom I now affectionately and gratefully bid farewell; that “I am resolved to leave the further defence of Cock-fighting for some more blessed brain to take in hand, and will content myself with that which I have already done, not doubting, but that in time, this illiterate and imperfect Embryon will intimate and allure some of Apollo’s sacred heirs, some of Thamisis’ sweet-singing swans, some heaven-inspired soul-enchanting poet, to carol forth at full, in high and heartpleasing strains, its due and well-deserved praises,”—a thing, which, as Mr. Wilson says, I shall be most glad to hear, and will most heartily and devoutly pray for.

GALLUS GALLINACEUS

London, 2d October, 1827