COUNTRY LIFE
FROM time to time it is rumoured that cock-fighting still takes place M country districts of the Midlands and North. *Like other barbaric sports, it has been driven underground and almost eliminated by the efforts of those who love animals and birds. A friend who possesses an original parchment of the rules and order of cocking as drawn by John Ardesoif on June 4th, 1754, has sent me details of the twenty clauses governing the ancient "sport." The first rule stated that all cocks should meet in battle with "faire hacket and noses shame," the second that they "be thonged and hooded til they be set to in a match" and the third that they be matched with "spurs girte of same length." It was laid down that the eyes of the birds should not be blinded under a penalty of twenty shillings, and twice this sum was forfeit if pricks or goads were used. The greatest crime a man could commit at a main was in failing to pay his bets. The eleventh rule made provision for his punishment: "Should any man make a wager and lose by paying not his dues but make another wager, he shall be put in a basket and hung to the eaves of the pit where all men shall see him and there he shall remain til the end of the session when he shall be surely cut down and banished from the main."
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