'Cocking,' says a writer of the time, 'is a
sport or pastime so full of delight and pleasure, that I know not
any game in that respect which is to be preferred before it.'
The training of the pugnacious bird had now become a sort of art,
and this is as curious as anything about the old 'royal
diversion.' A few extracts from a treatise on the subject may be
interesting as leaves from the book of manners and customs of the
good old times.
The most minute details are given as to the selection of
fighting-cocks, the breeding of game cocks, and 'the dieting and
ordering a cock for battle.' Under this last head we read:--'In
the morning take him out of the pen, and let him spar a while
with another cock. Sparring is after this manner. Cover each of
your cock's heels with a pair of hots made of bombasted rolls of
leather, so covering the spurs that they cannot bruise or wound
one another, and so setting them down on straw in a room, or
green grass abroad; let them fight a good while, but by no means
suffer them to draw blood of one another. The benefit that
accrues hereby is this: it heateth and chafeth their bodies, and
it breaketh the fat and glut that is within them.
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