notice of bull baiting in our own country, and more particularly in the two
northern counties of Cumberland and Westmorland. In England, the baiting
was done, as our readers will doubtless be aware, with a breed of dogs
peculiar to the country, called "bull" dogs. This breed, so famous in
story, might probably have become extinct after bull baiting was abolished,
had it not been for the numerous dog shows which have since taken place
throughout the country, where prizes are given for purity of breed and
excellence of form. Their principal characteristics are indomitable
courage, and an instinctive propensity to pin their huge adversary by the
nose. In order to effect this object, well bred dogs would rush furiously
at the bull, and although they might be unsuccessful and stand a chance of
being tossed high in the air, they never failed in returning again and
again to the attack. Wonderful stories may be gleaned, in all parts of the
kingdom, illustrative of their never dying resolute courage. In the quality
of endurance, under punishment, they may be likened to the English game
cock--the agonies of death even not being able to quench their fighting
propensities.
The following well authenticated anecdote, related by Bewick, the wood
engraver, illustrates this point in a most barbarous and disgraceful
manner. Many years ago, at a bull baiting in the North of England, a young
man, confident of the courage of his dog, laid some trifling wager, that he
would, at separate times, cut off all the four feet of his dog, and that,
after each amputation, it would attack the bull. The cruel experiment was
tried, and the gallant and courageous dog continued to rush at the bull,
upon its four stumps, as eagerly as if it had been perfectly whole!
Another anecdote of the bull dog has more of a ludicrous dash about it. A
father and son, in a northern village, had a young pup, descended from a
famous breed, out for exercise and training. The son accosted the rough old
paterfamilias with: "Doon on ye'r knees, fadder, an' boo like a bull!" The
"fadder" did as he was desired, and began "booin'." Before many "boos" had
been repeated, however, the pup had seized the sham "booin'" bull firmly
by the nose. Delighted at the ready tact displayed by the dog, young
hopeful roared out: "Bide it, fadder! bide it! It'll be t' _makkin_' o' t'
pup!"
Carlisle is the first northern town at which we shall notice bull baiting.
Our account has been gathered from tradition and from spectators of the
scenes. The old bull ring stood in the market place, in close proximity to
the "stocks," on that space of ground lying between the ancient cross and
the front of the town hall. There, from time immemorial, was the savage
pastime witnessed by generation after generation. If we cannot carry it
back to the dim mystical times, when
Kinge Arthur lived in merry Carleile,
And seemely was to see,
And there with him Queene Genever,
That bride soe bright of blee--
It requires but a limited stretch of the imagination to picture it in full
swing at the time when the three brave foresters of Inglewood
flourished,--Adam Bell, Clym o' the Clough, and William o' Cloudeslee,--and
when the two former rescued the latter from the hangman's cart in the same
market place.
And Cloudeslee lay ready there in a cart,
Ffast bound both foote and hande;
And a strong rope about his necke,
All readye ffor to hange.
Men have been maimed for life, and even gored to death, in bull baiting
frays, held in front of the Carlisle town hall. A large ferocious animal,
known as the "Linstock bull," was baited no less than three times. It once
broke loose from the ring; threw the multitude into wild disorder; knocked
down several of the bystanders, who came in contact with its onward
progress; and ran a butcher, named Gibbons, up against the wall! At this
exciting moment a cry from the crowd rent the air, which appalled the
bravest heart, but happily no material damage was done. For, curiously
enough, the man's life was saved through the animal's horns growing far
apart; the bull being one of the Lancashire long-horned breed, formerly
very common throughout the north country.
In old times, an aged woman, of coarse features and Amazonian strength,
figured prominently in the Carlisle ring, and was invariably accompanied by
a savage dog, called "Pincher." Her shrill voice was often heard, far above
the hubbub of the crowd, with such exclamations as, "Weel done,
Pincher!--good dog, Pincher!--stick till't, Pincher! Ha! ha! Pincher's
gripp't it noo!" And then, all at once, up went the veritable Pincher,
twenty feet in the air, turning "bully necks" three or four times, and
falling on the ground with a heavy thud, stunned and bleeding.
After prevailing at Carlisle for four or five centuries, and continuing as
time rolled on without any abatement to the end, both vicious and brutal,
bull baiting was finally suppressed _within_ the limits of the ancient
border city, about the end of the eighteenth century.
The last public bull baitings at Carlisle took place in the cattle market
on the "Sands"--then _outside_ the city boundaries--in the months of August
and September, 1824. Long before the time fixed to commence the proceedings
on the first occasion, thousands of persons--many of them females--were
assembled. The adjoining bridge was thronged, houses were covered, and
every eminence densely packed with eager expectant human beings. All the
scum and blackguardism of the old border city had quitted it. No such
outpouring could be remembered to have taken place, except when the noted
professors of pugilism, Carter and Oliver, contended at Gretna. The bull to
be baited was of the black Galloway breed, and had been purchased under
peculiar circumstances, by a few disreputable characters. In contending
against its canine assailants, it laboured under the great disadvantage of
being without horns.
The primary cause of the baitings was owing to the fact of the animal
having shown itself vicious, or in local phraseology, "man keen," by
attacking its owner, Mr. Rome of Park-house farm, near Rose Castle.
Suddenly turning round, in an open field, it tossed Mr. Rome over three
"riggs," injuring him so much that recovery was for some time considered
doubtful. It was supposed the bull had been irritated by a butcher's boy.
This may have been the case; but too much reliance is often placed on the
general docility of bulls. They are well known to be liable to sudden
outbursts of passion. This dangerous element may be said to be wedded to
their nature, and hence the deplorable accidents that sometimes happen. Due
caution was wanting in this case. The Park-house bull had previously shewn
symptoms of an unruly disposition, and yet Mr. Rome unguardedly entered the
"bull copy" to drive away some cows. The attack was so sudden, that there
was no chance of escape, and the owner would in all probability have been
killed on the spot, but for the opportune assistance of two men servants,
who succeeded in driving off the excited and furious beast with pitchforks.
On two separate occasions, the unfortunate beast was bound to the stake on
the Sands. It would have been, comparatively speaking, a merciful end to
the animal's life to have killed it at once, without inflicting the torture
of baiting, for the alleged purpose of rendering the beef tender. The bull
was fastened by a heavy chain, some twenty yards long, sufficient to give
it room to make play. At one time the conduct of the crowd was so confused
and disorderly, that several persons were injured, by the frightened animal
rushing about, and sweeping them off their feet with its chain. No one,
however, received any serious injury.
Several noted dogs were slipped at the bull. A yellow one, known in
sporting circles as David Spedding's "Peace;" a dark brindled one, owned by
Dan Sims, the publican; and a bitch, belonging to one Kirkpatrick; all
seized the bull cleverly by the nose, and made "good work." The yellow dog
especially had the knack of laying hold, and maintaining its grip to
perfection. Its usual mode of attack was to run between the fore legs of
the bull, fasten itself to the under lip, and then hang on like grim death.
Much amusement was created, by an Irishman running fussing about, and
shouting at the top of his voice: "Hould on there, hould on, till my dog
saizes the big baiste!" Pat let go. His dog made a bold dash at the bull,
and good sport was anticipated by the onlookers; but no sooner was the dog
turned upon by the enraged animal, than it showed tail, and ran for safety.
This "funking" on the part of the Irishman's dog, created loud laughter
among the crowd, and was followed by such bantering remarks as, "Arrah,
Pat, arrah! Ye'r dog's not game!"
In the hubbub, a man named Robert Telford, an auctioneer, was knocked over
by a sudden swerve of the ponderous chain which fastened the bull, and for
some time lay sprawling helpless in the dirt. He had a narrow escape from
being tossed in the air, boots uppermost, or else savagely gored.
Scarcely had the barking and growling of the dogs subsided, or the yelling
and shouting of the assembled rabble died away, when one of the onlookers,
who had been somewhat disappointed in the scenes enacted, pronounced it to
be but "a tamish sort of affair, after all!" A local celebrity,[13] also,
on leaving the ground, delivered himself of the following opinion, in slow
pompous tones: "Bad bait--bad bait! Bull too gross!"--the meaning of which
was that the bull was too fat to display that ferocity and activity which
some of the spectators had expected it would have done.
So fagged and spiritless had the animal become after one of the baits, that
a rough-spun butcher--a madcap of a fellow--had the temerity to leap
astride its back, and to ride up Rickergate in that ungainly fashion; while
the poor beast, now completely deadened to attack or viciousness of any
kind, was being slowly lead in the direction of some shambles or
outbuildings in East Tower street.
A disaster which befel the comedian, Riley, a few years before Mr. Rome was
nearly killed at Park-house farm, had a somewhat ludicrous termination. The
author of the _Itinerant_, in professionally "starring" through the
provinces, remained for some time in the neighbourhood of Furness Abbey,
and was engaged to lend his assistance there. The entertainment going off
very successfully, a "leetle" too much wine followed on the heels of it.
This we presume, for the quantity imbibed by Mr. Riley rendered his
perception not quite so clear as it might have been. The way to his
quarters was by a footpath through some fields; and jogging along by the
dimmish light of an obscured moon, he rambled off the path, and got into a
field in which a pugnaciously inclined bull was kept. Snatches of song and
other sounds arousing the brute from his night's slumber, he rose and
prepared to attack the son of _Thespis_, and gave notice of his intentions
by several long drawn "boos," which "boos" Mr. Riley attributed to some one
coming after him from the concert. The bull followed up, and got nearer and
nearer, with his "boo--boo--boo!" A collision suddenly took place close to
the hedge, and in the twinkling of an eye the gentleman was tossed up, and
landed secure, but prostrate, on the other side of the hedge, without any
harm but a good shaking. Looking up, the astonished comedian exclaimed:
"You are neither a musician nor a gentleman, by ----, if you are!"
During the eighteenth century, and for thirty or forty years into the
present one, farmers, small tradesmen, indeed, most families living in the
country, who could afford it, at the fall of the year, salted and stored by
as much beef as served the family through the winter. Hence bull
baiting--until suppressed--prevailed in most of the northern towns and
villages, in the month of November. The weather was then suitable for
salting a supply of beef for winter use, and an extra quantity either of
bull or heifer beef was quite saleable at that season of the year. An
erroneous idea prevailed--had indeed become a settled conviction, that bull
beef was much better--should not be used as food, in fact, without the
animal had been subject to the usual barbarous baiting.
In many places there prevailed a stringent regulation, that bulls should
not be slaughtered, until they had passed the ordeal of baiting; and
curious observances were enforced should the practice be omitted. In
Kendal, for instance, a singular custom was to be observed when any butcher
killed a bull, and attempted to dispose of the beef, without the animal
having been fastened to the bull ring and baited. The seller of the carcass
was obliged to have put up conspicuously, a large sign board, with the
words "Bull Beef," painted in legible letters, and to have a lantern stuck
up, with lighted candles burning in it, as long as the tabooed beef
remained unsold. This singular regulation or custom continued in use, and
was regularly observed as long as bull baiting was permitted in the town.
The Kendal bull ring was fixed on a green at the High Beast Banks, and had
been so fixed for generations. There the disgusting, demoralizing
saturnalia, with all its ruffianly concomitants, was held before a yelling
crowd of professedly civilized spectators. This brutal indulgence was
continued to the mayoralty of Mr. William Dobson, in 1790, when the
corporation interfered and put a final stop to it. We are surprised that in
Kendal, where the Quaker element in the population was so strong, the
odious "sport" should have been allowed to continue so long. The followers
of George Fox, we feel assured, would consider any encouragement given to
such degrading brutality as morally criminal.
Great Dockray and Sandgate, in the pleasant and busy market town of
Penrith, were the scenes of many uproarious bull baits. In one day, no less
than five beasts have been tied to the stake, and unmercifully tortured.
They would all be required, and many carcasses besides, at that season of
the year when salt beef was prepared for winter consumption. At Penrith,
the bull baitings were regularly attended by crowds of spectators, from all
the surrounding country villages. The inhabitants of the town, too,
deserted their quiet homes to witness the exciting but barbarous practice.
In Penrith, as well as other places, the idea was rooted in the minds of
the people that bulls intended for slaughter, and sold for human food,
should be baited. If the carcass of a bull, in the shambles of a butcher,
had not been subjected to the usual process of brutal cruelty, it would
have been rejected. The village of Stainton, as well as Penrith, was noted
for bull dogs of a pure and courageous breed. Those normal tribes of
gipsies, tinkers, and potters, who roamed over Cumberland, Westmorland, and
the borders of Scotland, during the latter part of the eighteenth century,
were celebrated for breeding and training bull dogs of a superior
description.
The small but interesting market town of Keswick--highly celebrated at the
present day, as the head quarters of numerous lake and mountain
excursionists--likewise had its bull ring, to which, through a lengthened
period of time, hundreds of unfortunate animals were tied and baited. No
greater desecration can be imagined to one of the most attractive districts
in Great Britain--revealing at every step scenes displaying vividly the
sublime beauty and grandeur of God's choicest handiwork--than the mad
uproar, the wild confusion, and gross brutality of a bull bait. The echoes
of the surrounding hills were made to resound with the furious merriment of
an excited multitude, in the full enjoyment of a cruel "sport." From the
beautiful Vale of Saint John, from the lower slopes of Blencathra and
Skiddaw, from the confines of the picturesque lake of Bassenthwaite, from
the surroundings of the more imposing Derwentwater, from many scattered
villages, like Borrowdale, crowds hastened to share in the gross enjoyment
of a hideous outrage on humanity.
The bull ring at Keswick,--as well as at Carlisle, Penrith, Wigton, Kendal,
and other places in the Lake country--was frequently the means of starting
a combat between some pugnaciously inclined Tom Crib, and any one who,
through intimidation, could be drawn into a fight. "Shaking the bull ring"
was tantamount to a challenge from some foolhardy individual, to "hev it
oot" with any one inclined to step forward; and it rarely happened at
"statute fairs" but that at least some two or three pugilistic encounters
followed the "shaking."
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Mr. William Browne, who began life in Carlisle as a bookbinder, and
ended as auctioneer, appraiser, and high-bailiff to the County Court.
BADGERS AND BADGER BAITING.
Baiting the badger differed from bull baiting in one respect, inasmuch as
the former was generally practised in some room or yard, mostly attached to
a public house. It was often a private affair, got up by some sporting
landlord, for the purpose of drawing customers to his hostelry, as well as
to have an opportunity of seeing the badger drawn; while bull baiting,
except on great state occasions, was always a public affair.
The badger, in former times called the "Grey," is a small animal, which at
no remote period was, comparatively speaking, plentiful in Cumberland and
Westmorland, and in various parts of the north of England. It abounded,
too, in Scotland, and its cured skin was used in making the Highlander's
hanging pouch. It measured about three feet from the snout to the end of
the tail, and weighed from seventeen to thirty pounds. Few animals are
better able to defend themselves, and fewer still of their own weight and
size dare attack them, in their native haunts. When in good case, they are
remarkably strong, fight with great resolution if brought to bay, can bite
extremely hard, and inflict very severe wounds. It is strange that it
should have been so persistently and ruthlessly hunted and destroyed, so
as to lead to the almost entire extermination of the herd in this country.
In _Reminiscences of West Cumberland_, (printed for private circulation, in
1882,) William Dickinson gives the following account of the capture of some
of these animals:--"On March 29, 1867, a badger was captured in a wood
adjoining the river Derwent, by Mr. Stirling's gamekeeper. It was a full
grown animal, in prime condition, and was secured without sustaining any
injury. A few years before that a badger was caught near St. Bees. It was
supposed to have escaped from captivity. Within my recollection, a badger
was taken by a shepherd and his dogs, on Birker moor, and believed to be a
wild one; and none had been known for many miles around by any one living.
They are not now known to breed in Cumberland; but the late Mr. John Peel
of Eskat, told me the brock or badger had a strong hold in Eskat woods, and
that he once came so suddenly on a brock asleep, as it basked in the sun,
that he struck it with his bill hook, and wounded it in the hind quarter.
Its hole was so near that it crawled in and was lost. The place is still
called the Brock-holes."
An interesting experiment has been tried on the Naworth Castle estate, the
Border residence of Mr. George Howard, a dozen miles or so from Carlisle.
About the year 1877 or 1878, four healthy and well developed badgers were
let off, some two miles eastward from the castle, near the side of the
river Irthing, which flows through a wide sweep of charmingly diversified
scenery. The place occupied by them is a piece of rough, woodland, "banky"
ground, quiet and secluded, the soil being of a dry sandy nature. The
badgers, in the first instance, were lodged in an old fox earth "bield,"
part of which they have held in undisturbed possession ever since. They
appeared to fall in naturally with their new quarters, and soon took to
digging and making the hole, and its various ramifications, much larger and
more capacious.
Curiously enough, after the lapse of some years, the foxes returned to
their old retreat, and for two successive seasons there has been a breed of
young cubs reared in the same burrow with the badgers. Each species of
animal has taken up a separate part or side-branch of the hole for its own
particular use and abode; and, so far as appearance goes, the two families
have lived together happy and contented for the time being.
A similar illustration of foxes fraternising with badgers is amply borne
out in a valuable communication to _The Times_, of October 24th, 1877, by
Mr. Alfred Ellis of Loughborough, who, after some difficulty, introduced a
breed of badgers, in semi-wild state, to a covert within fifty yards of his
own residence. Mr. Ellis says, "The fox and the badger are not unfriendly,
and last spring a litter of cubs was brought forth very near the badgers;
but their mother removed them after they had grown familiar, as she
probably thought they were showing themselves more than was prudent."
The neighbouring dogs are not known to have molested the Naworth badgers in
any way, and it is now supposed the estate can number about a dozen in
numerical strength. The nocturnal habits, natural to badgers, make it very
difficult to study their actions and mode of life, with any amount of close
observancy, as they rarely leave their holes till near nightfall, and are
back again generally by daybreak.
There is not much which properly comes under the game laws near the
badgers' place of rendezvous, but Mr. Brown, the head keeper, is under the
impression that they are destructive to some kinds of game; in fact, he
says, they take anything they can lay hold of in the shape of eggs or young
birds. They dig a good deal for fern roots, and feed upon them, turning up
the ground in the same way that a pig does. It would appear also that they
are very fond of moles. Any of these animals left dead by the keepers or
foresters, in the vicinity of their haunts, invariably disappear quickly
and are no more seen.
Shy, reserved, and alert as the badgers are, they may be come upon
sometimes, by chance or accident, on the banks of the Irthing; and when
seen in the dusky twilight of a summer evening, "scufterin'" along through
the long grass or "bracken" beds, they might be easily mistaken for a
litter of young pigs.
In addition to the food incidentally mentioned, the badger lives upon
frogs, insects, wasps' nests, fruit, grass, and a great variety of other
things. Its habits are perfectly harmless in a wild state; and yet few
animals have suffered so much cruel torture, in consequence of vulgar
prejudice. The hams, as food, were esteemed superior in delicacy of flavour
to the domestic pig or wild hog. In this country, the hind quarters only
were used for food; while in some parts of Europe and in China, the whole
carcass was held in high esteem, and considered to be very nutritious.
In hunting and capturing them, the usual plan was to dig a hole in the
ground, across some path which they were known to frequent, covering the
pit lightly over with sticks and leaves. Another mode of catching them was
by means of a sack being carefully fitted to the entrance of their burrows.
When supposed to be out feeding, two or three dogs were set to hunt the
adjoining grounds, and the badger was thus driven homewards, and safely
secured in the sack.
The mode of baiting was generally pursued as follows. Sometimes, according
to choice, the animal was put into a barrel; while at other times, a trench
was dug in the ground, fourteen inches deep and of the same width, and
covered over with a board. But the plan most frequently adopted was to have
a square drain-like box constructed, in the form of a capital letter L.
The longer part measured something like six feet in length, and the
shorter part four feet. The box was throughout thirteen or fourteen inches
square, with only one entrance way. When a batting display took place, the
badger was placed inside the box at the far end of the shorter compartment.
It will be apparent, from being so placed, that it had some advantage over
any dog attacking in front. The dog had to proceed up the longer leg of the
box, and then turning sharp round, found the object of its search
cautiously crouching, and on the watch for any advancing foe.
A strong fresh badger was never unprepared for fight, and, by being thus on
the alert, had the opportunity of inflicting a fearful bite at the outset;
so severe, indeed, that any currish inclined dog at once made the best of
his way out, howling with pain, and thoroughly discomfited. And no coaxing,
no inducement in the world, could make the craven-hearted brute attempt a
second attack.