On every anniversary of the Popish powder-plot, it was customary here to
bait bulls; and it was then pretty generally understood that no butcher
could legally slaughter a bull without first baiting him; or in default of
doing so, he must burn candles in his shop so long as a bit of the
bull-beef remained there for sale.

Whilst a bull, with false horns, has been defending himself at the stake,
or ring, in this market-place, dogs have been seen in the streets
quarrelling for a part of the tongue of the living bull! and daughters of
reason have joined their treble screams to the yell of triumph when the
bull either tossed or worried a dog, or a dog had pinned the bull, by
fastening on his nose so desperately firm as even to suffer his limbs to
be broken--nay, cut off--before he would let go his hold.

A man (of course of the bull-dog breed), not many years since, engaged to
attack a bull with his teeth, and so far succeeded as to deprive the
animal of power to hurt him.

In Bury, too, so late as the year 1801, a mob of "Christian savages were
indulging in the inhuman amusement of baiting and branding a bull. The
poor animal, who had been privately baited on the same day, burst from
his tethers in a state of madness. He was again entangled, and, monstrous
to relate, his hoofs were cut off, and he defended himself on his mangled,
bleeding stumps!"

The public exhibition of this most cowardly pastime is now prohibited; and
the bull-ring was taken up, by order of Mr. Buck, out of this market-place
about eight years back.