What dogs and lions can achieve in the arena of combat, and what bull-dogs are capable of enduring, having now been ascertained, let us hope that no closer approximation to the sanguinary games of the Roman amphitheatre may ever be attempted in Great Britain, nor her soil again polluted by a repetition of such spectacles.

CAUSES OF CRUELTY.

SECTION SECOND.

BRUTAL PASSIONS AND THE LOVE OF SPORT.

"Mala gaudia mentis."-VIRG.

"Sport to you is death to us."-ESOP'S FROGS.

Many species of cruelty are practised, which have not even the vulgar motive of money-making to plead in their excuse, nor aught but the mere gratification of brutal passions. Such, I suppose, were those of bull-baiting and bull-running, for I know not if any betting took place at the perpetration of such enormities. Happily they are now nearly every where abandoned. That they should have been tolerated so long in a Christian land would seem incredible, were there not so many unquestionable proofs of their frequency. The following quotation from Taplin's Sporting Dictionary, will give us some idea of such detestable exhibitions.

"Without enlarging much upon the 'hellish practice' of the sport itself, it cannot be inapplicable to advert one moment to the effect a scene of so much insatiate cruelty must inevitably produce upon the growing offspring of the lower classes, in towns where a custom so generally execrated is so shamefully carried on. Previous to the commencement 'every heart beats high with the coming joy,' not a window but is crowded with women and children, not a street or an avenue but is crowded with brutes, the very scum and refuse of society from every part of the surrounding country; and then begins a scene of the most

cruel and infernal practice that ever entered the heart of man, under the appellation of sporting mirth to the multitude.

"In the church of this town, on Sunday, the 20th day of December, (being the day previous to the baiting_of the bull,) 1801, a sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Barry, which sermon is since published, and in which the following passages may be found:

"Gracious God! benevolent parent of the universe, what a prodigy must he be in a Christian land who could thus disgrace his nature by such gigantic infamy, at which the blood of a heathen-of a very Hottentot might curdle! Two useful animals, the bull and the faithful dog, to be thus tormented, and for what purpose? Does it tend as some have said, (Windham) to keep alive the spirit of the English character? In answer to this we must remark, that the barbarous sport (if sport it can be called) was unknown to the ancient bravery of our ancestors, was introduced into this country in the reign of a bad king; and earnestly do I pray to Almighty God, that in the reign of a most pious and benevolent Prince, it may be for ever set aside! Cowards, of all men the least unmoved, can both inflict and witness cruelties. The heroes of a bull-bait, the patrons of mercenary pugilists, and the champions of a cock-fight can produce, I should think, but few, if any, disciples brought up under their tuition, who have done service to their country, either as warriors or citizens; but abundant are the testimonies which have been registered at the gallows of her devoted victims, trained up to these pursuits of bull-baiting."

Would that all clergymen would reprobate cruelty from their pulpits with such honest indignation as this! The worthy Doctor acted as became a Christian minister in denouncing such barbarous sports, and as a high-minded generous Briton, in repudiating the idea that they are useful to keep alive the spirit of Englishmen. Shame to a British senate that could suffer their ears to be profaned by such a false and unfounded assertion! There could not be a more audacious libel and foul calumny on the courage of Britons, than to affirm that such sports are necessary to its preservation. No argument could betray

It

more ignorance of the nature of that genuine courage which comes from moral principle, and not brutal instinct. is proverbially true that cowards are cruel, and nothing great, nothing good in any sense can come from cruelty. It skulks from the pains it is so ready to inflict, and shows a craven soul at the time when resolution and bravery are most required. The heroes of a cock-pit or bull-bait would shrink, as snails in their shells, into their own despicable cowardice, if marched to the front of battle, and commanded to try the game of life or death with men. If proofs of this were wanted, enough might be produced: but it may suffice to give the testimony of one whose ipse dixit was once deemed infallible, and decisive as proof from holy writ. Aristotle, in the eighth book and fourth chapter of his Treatise on Government, when speaking of the education of children, says that the Lacedæmonians fell into a great mistake in supposing that "to make their children fierce by painful labour was chiefly. useful to inspire them with courage; though this is neither the only thing nor the principal thing necessary to attend to; and even with respect to this they may not thus attain their end; for we do not find either in other animals, or other nations, that courage necessarily attends the most cruel, but rather the milder, and those who have the dispositions of lions; for there are many people who are eager both to kill men and to devour human flesh, as the Achaans and Heniochi in Pontus, and many others in Asia, some of whom are as bad, others worse than these, who indeed live by tyranny, but are men of no courage.” * * * "What is fair and honourable ought to take place in education of what is fierce and cruel; for it is not a wolf nor any other wild beast which will brave any noble danger, but rather a good man."-(Ellis's Translation.)

With the bull-baiting of the English may be classed the bull-fights of the Spaniards, the progeny of the ancient Taurilia; games instituted to their most appropriate patrons, the infernal Gods. But I shall not shock the reader's feelings by repeating any of the numerous descriptions given by travellers, who have witnessed these horrible exhibitions. Captain Basil Hall, after describing

one at which he was present in Lima, informs us that "the greater number of the company, although females, seemed enchanted with the brutal scene. It was melancholy to see a great proportion of children amongst the spectators, from one of whom, a little girl only eight years old, I learned that she had been present at three bull-fights, the details of which she gave with great animation and pleasure, dwelling especially on the most horrid circumstances. It would shock and disgust to no purpose to give a minute account of other instances of wanton cruelty, which, however, appeared to be the principal recommendation of these exhibitions."

"I heard a Chilian gentleman," continues our author, "offer a curious theory on this subject. He declared that the Spaniards had systematically sought by these cruel shows, and other similar means, to degrade the taste of the colonies, and thereby more easily to tyrannize over the inhabitants. The people, he said, first rendered utterly insensible to the feelings of others, by a constant familiarity with cruelty and injustice, soon became indifferent to the wrongs of their country, and in the end lost all motive to generous exertion in themselves."Extracts from a Journal, &c. vol. 1. pp. 104, 105.

The theory may be "curious," it is also philosophical, and founded on observation and experience. The love of cruel sports is a sure indication of the absence of all the nobler virtues. Well did the satirist describe the degeneracy and slavery of the Roman people, when he said. they cared for nothing but " panem et Circenses," for which words we may find an English equivalent in porter and cock-fighting.

Badger-beating, another infernal sport which some perchance might call manly, was once exceedingly prevalent in London and its vicinity. The metropolis, as Taplin informs us, had a constant supply of badgers from the woods of Essex, Kent, and Surry. "The most abandoned miscreants, with their bull-dogs and terriers, from every extremity of the town" crowded to the exhibition. "To the dreadful and inhuman scene of baiting bears and badgers with the most ferocious dogs, till nature was quite exhausted, succeeded dog fights, boxing matches, and

every species of the most incredible infamy, under sanction of the knights of the cleaver, till by the persevering efforts of the more humane inhabitants, and the spirited determination of the magistracy, the practice seems totally abolished, and likely to be buried in a much wishedfor oblivion."

Though we must rejoice that any steps have been taken towards a reformation, there is still room to fear that the taste for such exhibitions is far from being extinct. The baiting of bears and badgers has been followed by other sports not less exciting; as by that of the dog "Billy" and the rats, of which he was to destroy some scores in a given time; and that of a certain biped in the shape of a man, who contested the palm of superiority with the quadruped in the same fascinating entertainment. Dogs, and monkeys too, have afforded excellent sport. In a London newspaper, 1820, we read, “A monkey weighing only twelve pounds, has within the last few days encountered several of the best bred dogs of twenty-four pounds weight. The odds in the first instance were against the monkey two to one; but, strange to relate, the monkey in these combats, with his tusks seized upon the dogs, and cut their throats as if done with a razor. In the short space of a minute most of the dogs have been disabled from loss of blood, and died within a few hours after the battle. This circumstance has quite astonished the sporting world. There is little doubt but the best dogs of thirty pounds weight must, in combat with the above monkey, fall a sacrifice."

The encouragers and spectators of such sports are not all of plebeian rank. Some of them can boast of patrician blood, and of a nobler scutcheon than the "knights of the cleaver." What should we say if not only senators, but knights of the cross, were to be discovered among them ?

The "wholesale slaughter," as it has been justly denominated, which, for the mere sake of killing, is sometimes perpetrated by the privileged few among the feathered tribes, should not be suffered to escape animadversion. We occasionally read of sportsmen in the highlands of Scotland, and elsewhere, who, like the dog Billy