16th, 1670. I went with some friends to the bear-garden, where was
cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear and bull-baiting, it being a
famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather barbarous
cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish wolf-dog
exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a stately creature indeed, who
beat a cruel mastiff. One of the bulls tossed a dog full into a
lady's lap, as she sat in one of the boxes at a considerable height
from the arena. Two poor dogs were killed, and so all ended with the
ape on horseback, and I most heartily weary of the rude and dirty
pastime, which I had not seen, I think, in twenty years before."
Foreigners, who have visited England in by-gone times, often allude
scornfully to our forefathers' barbarous diversions; but on the
whole they seem rather to have enjoyed the sport. A Spanish nobleman
was taken to see a poor pony baited with an ape fastened on its
back; and he wrote--"to see the animal kicking amongst the dogs,
with the screams of the ape, beholding the curs hanging from the
ears and neck of the pony, is very laughable!" But enough has been
said of these terrible and monstrous cruelties. Happily for us they
no longer exist, and together with cock-fighting, throwing at cocks
and hens, and other barbarous amusements, cannot now be reckoned
among our sports and pastimes. It was a happy thing for us when the
conscience of the nation was aroused, and the law stepped in to put
an end to such disgraceful scenes which were witnessed in the Paris
Garden at Southwark, or in the rude bull-run of a Yorkshire village.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was not known
in the days of bear-baiting and cock-throwing.