Trial by Jury in Old Times.

 

By Thomas Frost.

 

WHEN we congratulate ourselves, as we are so apt to do, on the length of time the system of trial by jury has been established in England, and the safeguard it affords against attempts to strain the law to the prejudice of the accused, we are often unmindful of the fact that the institution has not always proved a safeguard when the court, acting under the influence of the Crown, endeavoured to obtain a conviction. It was only in the latter half of the sixteenth century that juries began to evince that determination not to yield their own judgment to the wishes of those in high authority, which became further developed in the course of the seventeenth. An interesting illustration of the old spirit of judges, and the new spirit of juries, is afforded by the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, in 1554, on a charge of high treason, in conspiring the death or deposition of the Queen, and the seizure by force of arms of the Tower of London. The prosecution was conducted by Serjeant Stanford and the Attorney-General, Griffin, the former leading; and it is noteworthy that both they and Chief Justice Bromley questioned the prisoner in much the same manner as is still customary in France and Belgium, striving to procure evidence that would convict him out of his own mouth. The endeavour failed, and the only criminating evidence against the prisoner was contained in the alleged confessions of Winter and Crofts, who, however, were not called as witnesses.

The jury, after several hours’ deliberation, returned a verdict of not guilty, upon which the Lord Chief Justice addressed them in threatening tones, saying, “Remember yourselves better. Have you considered substantially the whole evidence as it was declared and recited? The matter doth touch the Queen’s highness and yourselves also. Take good heed what you do.” The jury were firm, however, and the foreman replied to the remonstrance of the bench, “We have found him not guilty, agreeable to all our consciences.” Then the Attorney-General rose, and addressing the court, said, “An it please you, my lords, forasmuch as it seemeth these men of the jury, which have strangely acquitted the prisoner of his treasons whereof he was indicted, will forthwith depart the court, I pray you for the Queen that they and every one of them may be bound in a recognizance of £500 a-piece, to answer to such matters as they shall be charged with in the Queen’s behalf, whensoever they shall be charged or called.” The court went beyond even this audacious request, for they actually committed the jury to prison! Four of them were discharged shortly afterwards, having so little moral stamina left as to make a humble confession that they had done wrong; but the remaining eight were brought before the Star Chamber and severely dealt with, three being ordered to pay a fine of £2,000 each, and the others £200 each.

In the following reign, in a case in which three persons were indicted for murder, and the jury found them guilty of manslaughter only, contrary to the direction of the court, the jurors were both fined and bound in recognizances for their future “good behaviour.” A decision of the Lord Chancellor, the two Chief Justices, and the Chief Baron, in the reign of James I., sets forth that when a person is found guilty on indictment, the jury should not be questioned; but when a jury has acquitted a prisoner against what the court holds to be proof of guilt, they may be charged in the Star Chamber, “for their partiality in finding a manifest offender not guilty.” In 1667, we find this view extended to the case of grand juries ignoring a bill on grounds which the court did not consider sufficient. Chief Justice Kelying in that year having fined a grand jury of the County of Somerset, for not finding a true bill against a man accused of murder; but, says the report, “because they were gentlemen of repute in the county, the court spared the fine.” This case, and several others in which the same judge had acted in a similar manner, were brought under the notice of the House of Commons, however, and that assembly resolved “that the precedents and practice of fining or imprisoning jurors for verdicts is illegal.”

Notwithstanding this resolution of the House of Commons, William Penn, and another member of the Society of Friends, named Mead, being indicted at the Old Bailey for having, with other persons unknown, unlawfully and tumultuously assembled in Gracechurch Street, in the City of London, the Recorder dealt with the jury in a manner which caused the illegality of fining jurors for their verdicts to be again brought into question. The indictment set forth that Penn, by agreement with and abetment of Mead, did in the open street speak and preach to the persons there assembled, by reason whereof a great concourse of people gathered and remained a long time, in contempt of the King and the law, and to the great terror and disturbance of many of His Majesty’s liege subjects. The trial took place before the Recorder, the Lord Mayor, and the Aldermen; and when witnesses had deposed that Penn had preached, and that Mead was there with him, the Recorder summed up the evidence, and the jury retired to consider their verdict. They were absent a considerable time, at length returning with the verdict that Penn was “guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street.”

“Is that all?” the Recorder asked.

“That is all I have in commission,” replied the foreman.

“You had as good say nothing,” observed the Recorder, and the Lord Mayor added, “Was it not an unlawful assembly? You mean he was speaking to a tumult of people there.”

“My lord,” returned the foreman, “that is all I have in commission.”

“The law of England,” said the Recorder “will not allow you to part until you have given in your verdict.”

“We have given in our verdict,” returned the jury, “and we can give in no other.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Recorder, “you have not given in your verdict, and you had as good say nothing; therefore go and consider it once more, that we may make an end of this troublesome business.”

The jury then asked for pen, ink, and paper, and the request being complied with, they again retired, returning after a brief interval with their verdict in writing. They found Penn “guilty of speaking or preaching to an assembly met together in Gracechurch Street,” and Mead not guilty.

“Gentlemen,” said the Recorder, regarding the jury angrily, “you shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the court will accept; and you shall be locked up, without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco. You shall not think thus to abuse the court. We will have a verdict, or you shall starve for it.”

Penn protested against this course, upon which the Recorder ordered the officers of the court to stop his mouth or remove him. The jury not leaving their box, the Recorder again directed them to retire and re-consider their verdict. Penn made a spirited remonstrance. “The agreement of twelve men,” said he, “is a verdict in law, and such a one having been given by the jury, I require the clerk of the peace to record it, as he will answer at his peril. And if the jury bring in another verdict contradictory to this, I affirm they are perjured men in law. You are Englishmen,” he added, turning to the jury, “mind your privilege; give not away your right.” The court then adjourned to the following morning, when the prisoners were brought to the bar, and the jury, who had been locked up all night, were sent for. They were firm of purpose, and through their foreman persisted in their verdict.

“What is this to the purpose?” demanded the Recorder, “I will have a verdict.” Then addressing a juror, named Bushel, whom he had threatened on the previous day, he said, “you are a factious fellow; I will set a mark on you, and whilst I have anything to do in the city, I will have an eye on you.”

Penn again protested against the jury being threatened in this manner, upon which the Lord Mayor ordered that his mouth should be stopped, and that the gaoler should bring fetters and chain him to the floor; but it does not appear that this was done. The jury were again directed to retire and bring in a different verdict, and they withdrew under protest, the foreman saying, “We have given in our verdict, and all agreed to it; and if we give in another, it will be a force upon us to save our lives.”

According to the narrative written by Penn and Mead, and quoted in Forsyth’s “History of Trial by Jury,” this scene took place on Sunday morning, and the court adjourned again to the following day, when, unless they were supplied with food surreptitiously, they must have fasted since Saturday. The foreman gave in their verdict in writing, as before, to which they had severally subscribed their names. The clerk received it, but was prevented from reading it by the Recorder, who desired him to ask for a “positive verdict.”

“That is our verdict,” said the foreman. “We have subscribed to it.”

“Then hearken to your verdict,” said the clerk. “You say that William Penn is not guilty in manner and form as he stands indicted; you say that William Mead is not guilty in manner and form as he stands indicted; and so say you all.”

The jury responded affirmatively, and their names were then called over, and each juror was commanded to give his separate verdict, which they did unanimously.

“I am sorry, gentlemen,” the Recorder then said, “you have followed your own judgments and opinions, rather than the good and wholesome advice which was given you. God keep my life out of your hands! But for this the court fines you forty marks a man, and imprisonment till paid.”

Penn was about to leave the dock, but was prevented from doing so, upon which he said, “I demand my liberty, being freed by the jury.”

“You are in for your fines,” the Lord Mayor told the prisoners.

“Fines, for what?” demanded Penn.

“For contempt of court,” replied the Lord Mayor.

“I ask,” exclaimed Penn, “if it be according to the fundamental laws of England, that any Englishman should be fined or amerced but by the judgment of his peers or jury; since it expressly contradicts the fourteenth and twenty-ninth chapters of the Great Charter of England, which say, ‘No freeman ought to be amerced but by the oath of good and lawful men of the vicinage.’”

“Take him away,” cried the Recorder.

“They then,” continues the narrative, “hauled the prisoners into the bail-dock, and from thence sent them to Newgate, for non-payment of their fines; and so were their jury. But the jury were afterwards discharged upon an habeas corpus, returnable in the Common Pleas, where their commitment was adjudged illegal.” Even then, judges appear to have remained unconvinced of the illegality of the practice, or stubborn in their desire to enforce their own views or wishes upon juries; for the question was not regarded as finally settled until the decision in the Court of Common Pleas was clinched, in the same year, by a similar judgment of the Court of King’s Bench.

Originally posted 2018-04-25 10:37:00.

Trials of Animals.

By Thomas Frost.

 

ONE of the most singular features of the jurisprudence of the middle ages, and one which was retained in the French code down to nearly the middle of the last century, was the indictment of domestic animals for injuries inflicted on mankind. The records of the criminal tribunals of France disclose ninety-two such judicial processes between 1120 and 1741, when the last of these grotesque trials took place in Poitou. The practice seems to have been based on the Mosaic law, it being there ordered that, “if an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten.” (Exodus, c. xxi., v. 28.) Oxen and pigs were the animals that most frequently were the subjects of these strange proceedings, the indictment against the former being for goring persons, while the latter suffered for killing and sometimes devouring very young children.

The earliest instance of which any particulars can be gathered occurred in 1314, when, according to M. Carlier, who relates the story in his history of the Duchy of Valois, a bull escaped from a farm-yard in the village of Moisy, and gored a man so severely that death ensued. The Count of Valois, being informed of the fatility, directed that the bull should be captured, and formally prosecuted for causing the man’s death. This was done, and evidence was given by persons who had seen the man attacked and killed. The bull was thereupon sentenced to suffer death, which was inflicted by strangulation, after which the carcase was suspended from a tree by the hind legs. But the affair did not end thus, for the sentence was appealed against, probably by the owner of the bull, on the ground that the retainers of the Count of Valois had no legal authority to execute the sentence. This plea was debated at great length, and the provincial parliament eventually decided that, though the sentence was a just one, the Count of Valois had no justiciary authority in the district of Moisy.

Next in the order of time comes the trial at Falaise of a sow which had torn the face and arm of a child, from the effects of which injuries it died. The sow was condemned to be mutilated in the head and one fore leg, and afterwards to be strangled, which sentence was executed in the public square of the town. This was in 1386. Three years later, a horse was condemned to death at Dijon for having killed a man. In 1403, Simon de Baudemont, lieutenant of Meulan; Jean, lord of Maintenon; and the bailiff of Mantes and Meulan, signed an attestation of the expenses incurred in the prosecution and execution of a sow that had killed and partially eaten a child. The following is a copy of the document, to which it may be added that the story of the trial and execution may be found in the “Curiosités Judiciaires et Historiques du Moyen Age” of M. Aguel:—“Item, for expenses within the gaol, 6 sols. Item, to the executioner, who came from Paris to Meulan to put the sentence in execution, by command of our Lord the Bailiff and of the King’s Attorney, 54 sols. Item, for the carriage that conveyed her to execution, 6 sols. Item, for ropes to tie and haul her up, 2 sols, 8 deniers. Item, for gloves, 12 deniers; amounting in the whole to 69 sols, 8 deniers.” In connection with the first item of this curious document, it may be observed that, in a receipt delivered five years later by a notary of Pont de l’Arche to the gaoler of the prison of that town, the same amount is allowed for the daily food of a pig, imprisoned on the charge of killing a child, as for a man in the same prison. The last item, the gloves, is supposed by M. Aguel to be a customary allowance to the executioner.

In 1457, a sow and her six young pigs were tried at Lavegny, on the charge of having killed and partially eaten a child. The sow was convicted, and condemned to death; but the little ones were acquitted on the ground of their tender years or months, the bad example of their mother, and the absence of direct evidence of their having partaken of the unnatural feast. In 1494, sentence of death was pronounced on a pig by the Mayor of Laon for having mutilated and destroyed an infant in its cradle, full particulars of which case were given in the “Annuaire du Departement de l’Aisne” for 1812. The act of condemnation, as there given, concludes as follows:—“We, in detestation and horror of this crime, and in order to make an example and satisfy justice, have declared, judged, sentenced, pronounced, and appointed that the said hog, being detained a prisoner, and confined in the said abbey, shall be, by the executioner, strangled and hanged on a gibbet, near and adjoining the gallows in the jurisdiction of the said monks, being near their copyhold of Avin. In witness of which we have sealed this present with our seal.” This document was sealed with red wax, and endorsed:—“Sentence on a hog, executed by justice, brought into the copyhold of Clermont, and strangled on a gibbet at Avin.”

Three years later, a sow was condemned to be beaten to death for having mutilated the face of a child of the village of Charonne. The act of condemnation in this case directed further that the flesh of the sow should be given to the dogs of the village, and that the owner of the sow and his wife should make a pilgrimage to the Church of Our Lady at Pontoise, and bring on their return a certificate that this injunction had been duly complied with. In 1499, a bull was strangled for having killed a boy in the lordship of Cauroy, which belonged to the abbey of Beaufiré.

Lionnois gives, in his history of Nancy, a full report of the proceedings on the delivery of a condemned pig to the executioner of that city in 1572. He mentions, among other details, that the animal, secured by a cord, was led to a cross near the cemetery; that from the most remote period the justice of the lord, the abbot of Moyen Moutier, was accustomed to deliver to the provost, or marshal of St. Diez, near to this cross, all condemned criminals, that execution might ensue; and that, the said pig being a brute beast, the mayor and the justice held a conference at that place, and left the said pig tied with a cord, without prejudice to the judicial rights of the lord.

Judicial proceedings against the lower animals were not confined to France, for the list of such cases compiled by M. Berriat St. Prix, and published in the “Memoires de la Societé des Antiquaires” for 1829, mentions one tried at Lausanne in 1364, another at the same town in 1451, a third at Basle in 1474, another at Lausanne in 1479, and a fifth at the same place in 1554. Concerning the first of these Swiss trials, Ruchat states, in his history of the Protestant reformation in Switzerland, that the victim was a pig that had killed a child in the village of Chattens, situated among the Jorat hills. It was cited to appear in the Bishop’s Court at Lausanne, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death—the executioner being a pork butcher.

The Basle case was a very singular one. A farm-yard cock was tried on the absurd charge of having laid an egg. It was contended in support of the prosecution that eggs laid by cocks were of inestimable value for use in certain magical preparations; that a sorcerer would rather possess a cock’s egg than the philosopher’s stone; and that Satan employed witches to hatch such eggs, from which proceeded winged serpents most dangerous to mankind. On behalf of the gallinaceous prisoner, the facts of the case were admitted, but his advocate submitted that no evil animus had been proved against his client, and that no injury to man or beast had resulted. Besides, the laying of the egg was an involuntary act, and as such not punishable by law. If it was intended to impute the crime of sorcery to his client, he was entitled to an acquittal; for there was no instance on record of Satan having made a compact with one of the brute creation. In reply, the public prosecutor stated that, though the Evil One did not make compacts with brutes, he sometimes entered into them; and though the swine possessed by devils, as related by the Evangelists, were involuntary agents, yet they, nevertheless, were punished by being caused to run down a steep decline into the Lake of Galilee, where they were drowned. The poor cock was convicted, and condemned to death, not as a cock, however, but as a sorcerer, or perhaps a devil, in the form of a cock, on which finding it was, with the egg attributed to it, burned at a stake, with all the form and solemnity of a judicial execution.

As the lower animals were amenable to the law in Switzerland in those dark ages, so, in certain circumstances, they could be put into the witness box. If a house was broken into between sunset and sunrise, and the occupier killed the intruder, the act was regarded as justifiable homicide. But it was thought right to provide by law against the case of a man, living alone, who might invite a person whom he wished to kill to spend the evening with him, and having slain him, might assert that he committed the act in self-defence, or to protect his property, the dead man having been a burglar. Therefore, when a man was killed in such circumstances, the occupier of the house was required to produce some domestic animal that was an inmate of the house, and had witnessed the tragedy, and to declare his innocence on oath in the presence of such animal. If the brute witness did not contradict him, he was acquitted; the law taking it for granted that God, rather than allow a murderer to go unpunished, would intervene by causing a miraculous manifestation by the mouth of a dumb witness.

Even more strange than the trials of oxen, pigs, etc., for offences against mankind, were the legal proceedings often taken in the middle ages against noxious insects and the smaller quadrupeds, such as rats. The “Memoires de la Societé Royale Academique de Savoie” contain a very curious account of the proceedings instituted in 1445 and 1487 against certain beetles that had committed great ravages in the vineyards of St. Julien. Advocates were named on behalf of the vine-growers and the beetles respectively; but, by a singular coincidence, the insects disappeared when cited to answer for the mischief they had done, and the proceedings were in consequence abandoned. That was in 1445. In 1487, however, they re-appeared, and a complaint was thereupon addressed to the vicar-general of the Bishop of Maurienne, who named a judge, and also an advocate to represent the beetles. Counsel having been heard on both sides, the judge suggested that the vine-growers should cede to the defendants certain land, where they could live without encroaching on the vineyards. The plaintiffs agreed to this compromise, with the proviso that, in default of the defendants accepting the terms offered them, the judge would order that the vineyards should be respected by the beetles under certain penalties. The advocate for the beetles demanded time for consideration, and on the resumption of the proceedings stated that he could not accept, on behalf of his clients, the suggestion of the court, as the land proposed to be given up to them was barren, and afforded nothing upon which they could subsist. The court then appointed assessors to survey the land in question, and on their report that it was well wooded and provided with herbage, the conveyance was ordered to be engrossed in due form and executed. The matter was then regarded by the plaintiffs as settled; but the beetles discovered, or their advocate discovered for them, that a quarry of an ochreous earth, used as a pigment, had formerly been worked on the land conveyed to the insects, and though it had long since been worked out, some person possessed an ancient right of way to it, the exercise of which would be extremely prejudicial to them. Consequently, the agreement was held to be vitiated, and the legal proceedings had to be recommenced de novo. How they eventually terminated cannot be told, owing to the mutilation of the documents relating to the proceedings subsequent to 1487.

Nearly a century later, legal proceedings were commenced by the inhabitants of a village in the diocese of Autun against the rats by which their houses and barns were infested; the trial being famous in the annals of French jurisprudence as that in which Chassanee, the celebrated jurisconsult, first achieved distinction. The rats not appearing on the first citation, Chassanee, who was retained for the defence, argued that the summons was of too local a character, and that, as all the rats in the diocese of Autun were interested in the case, they should be summoned throughout the diocese. This plea being admitted, the curé of every parish in the diocese was instructed to summon all the rats within its limits to attend on a day named in the summons. The day having arrived, and the rats failing to appear, Chassanee said that, as all his clients were summoned, including old and young, sick and healthy, great preparations had to be made, and certain necessary arrangements effected, and he had to ask, therefore, for an extension of time. This also being granted, another day was appointed, but again not a single rat put in an appearance.

Chassanee then made an objection to the legality of the summons. A summons from that court, he said, implied full protection to the parties summoned, both on their way to it and on their return to their homes; and his clients, the rats, though most anxious to appear in obedience to the court, did not dare to leave their homes to come to Autun, on account of the number of evil-disposed cats kept by the plaintiffs. If the latter would enter into bonds, under heavy pecuniary penalties, that their cats should not molest his clients, the summons would be immediately obeyed. The court acknowledged the validity of this plea, but the plaintiffs declined to be bound for the good behaviour of their cats. The further hearing of the case was, therefore, adjourned sine die, and thus Chassanee gained his cause. Full particulars of the proceedings are given in a Latin work, written by him, and published in 1588.

 

Originally posted 2018-04-24 16:59:00.

Cock-Fighting in Scotland.

 

 

IT is highly probable that the Romans introduced cock-fighting into this country. It is generally believed that the sport was made popular by Themistocles. On one occasion he saw two cocks fighting, and their courage greatly impressed him, and he felt such exhibitions might teach a useful lesson of bravery to those who witnessed them. Periodical contests were exhibited, and were popular amongst the Greeks and Romans and with other nations, and were much appreciated by a large section of the inhabitants of this land. In “Bygone England,” by William Andrews, f.r.h.s. (London 1892), will be found a long account of “Fighting-Cocks in Schools.” One of the earliest accounts of the pastime in England, says Mr. Andrews, occurs in a “Description of the City of London,” by William Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II., and died in the year 1191. He records that it was the annual custom on Shrove Tuesday for the boys to bring their game cocks to the schools, to turn the schoolrooms into cockpits, the masters and pupils spending the morning witnessing the birds fighting.

Old town accounts contain many references to this custom, for example at Congleton, Cheshire, is the following item:—

“1601.

Payd John Wagge for dressynge the schoolhouse at the great [Congleton] cockfyghte.”

£0 0s. 4d.

Hugh Miller, the famous geologist, who was born in the year 1802, in his popular volume “My Schools and Schoolmasters,” gives a graphic account of that amusement in the Cromarty grammar school where he received his education. “The school,” says Miller, “like almost all other grammar schools of the period in Scotland, had its yearly cock-fight, preceded by two holidays and a half, during which the boys occupied themselves in collecting and bringing up the cocks. And such was the array of fighting birds mustered on the occasion, that the day of the festival from morning till night used to be spent in fighting out the battle. For weeks after it had passed, the school floor continued to retain its deeply stained blotches of blood, and the boys would be full of exciting narratives regarding the glories of gallant birds who had continued to fight until their eyes had been pecked out; or who in the moment of victory, had dropped dead in the middle of the cock-pit.” Miller at some length denounces the cruel sport.

In England cock-fighting is prohibited by statute 12 and 13 Vict. 3, 92, under which every person who shall in any manner encourage, aid, or assist at the fighting or baiting of any bull, bear, badger, dog, cock, or other animal, shall forfeit and pay a penalty not exceeding £5 for every such offence. In Scotland it was not illegal until quite recently. An act was passed in 1850 known as the “Cruelty to Animals (Scotland) Act,” but the wording of the statute was found not to include the game or fighting-cock. The sport became popular and the law could not touch those that took part in the cruel amusement. It was felt to be a national scandal, and to prevent it, a short statute was passed on 30th May, 1895, whereby the definition of the word animal in the 11th section was amended by adding at the end thereof the words “or any game or fighting-cock, or other domestic fowl or bird.”

Mr. Robert Bird, the genial and gifted author of “Law Lyrics,” a volume which has been warmly welcomed by the public and the press, has made cock-fighting the subject of a clever poem.

COCKIELEERIE-LAW.

By Robert Bird.

In Full Court, Edinburgh, 23rd December, 1892.

 

Six legal wigs, like well-plumed tappit hens,

Sat brooding o’er a pair of fighting cocks;

While lesser wigs, begowned, and brief in hand,

Declaimed in flowing periods, of the fray,

Like ancient bards, that wanted but their harps,

Their wallets, ballad verse, and song, to make

The very goose quills, sleeping on the bench,

Awake! take sides and spill each other’s ink.

And as they spake, a legal fog dropt down

Upon the learned six, and each beheld,

In green mirage, born of the cloud of words,

Two cocks, Game cocks, crop-combed, erect, and slim,

With feathers dipped in crimson, gold, and blue,

Frill-necked, with trailing wings and spurs of steel,

That on each other flew and pecked and spurred,

And spurred and pecked again, until the Court

Reeked like a cock-pit, and the crowd of wigs,—

Of boyish idle wigs,—took bonnet shapes

That hooded scowling brows of cursing men,

Who laid their bets on this bird, and on that,

As, with quick panting breath and beaks agape,

They pranced, flew, fought, until the oaken bar

Seemed spattered o’er with feathers and cock blood.

At length one cock the other overthrew,

And struck quick spurs into his quivering breast

Until he died; then he, with croaking crow,

Fell, wounded, bleeding, dying by his side

Amid the applauding cheers of thirsty throats,

Soon to be slaked with liquid bets, and so

The battle ended, but the fog remained.

 

A rustling of silk plumes upon the bench,

Five wigs bent low, and thus great Solon spake—

“’Twas in Kilbarchan that this fight was fought,

And straight the men who prompted it were ta’en,

And jailed, and tried, and sentenced for the same;

But now they seek release, and this their plea,

That in the gracious Act which says that men

Shall not treat brutes and beasts with cruelty,

The name of “Cock” is absent; therefore they

Claim full exemption for their brutish deeds,

And we, vicegerents of our gentle Queen,

With spectacle on nose, must well explore

This vital point in Cockieleerie-law.

 

The illumined page of history reveals

Cock-fighting as an ancient royal sport.

The Early Greeks and Romans in their day

Found pastime sweet in setting cock on cock;

The sage Themistocles took keen delight

In battling fowls; while glorious Cæsar, too,

Loved much to back his bird; and, furthermore,

Marc Antony’s gamecocks did always lose

When pitted against Cæsar’s fiercer breed.

King Henry VIII., of sainted memory!

At Whitehall had a special cock-pit built,

Wherein his royal birds made lively sport

For gentle dames and all his merry knights.

 

The most accomplished scholar of his day,

Squire Roger Ascham, tutor to Queen Bess,

Much as he loved his books, loved cocks the more,

And loved them most when victors in the fight.

And last of all, that great and noble Duke,

The conqueror of Blenheim, in game birds

Found something that reminded him of self;

And thus we see the fighting instinct strong

In cocks, and other nobles of past time.

 

“Game cocks, we find, from earliest Cockereldom,

Delight in war, as dogs to bark and bite,

And raining blows upon each other’s ribs

Do best fulfil their part of nature’s plan,

Which built them slim and bade them love the fray;

And while we hope no preference here to show,—

’Tis open question, whether rearing fowls

To wring their necks, or match them in the pit,

Does more exalt the brute or sink the man.

 

“But here, the cocks were armed with spurs of steel,

And ’tis a subtle matter, whether they

With iron shod, or spurred with native horn,

Do deal the deadliest blows in angry fray;

And, while we have our own opinion strong!

’Tis not within our province to pronounce.

 

“If it be wrong with steel to prick a fowl,

What of the spurs with which hard riders goad

The bleeding sides of horses in the race,

Or in the steeplechase, or country hunt?

And what of hares in coursing run to death?

Of quivering foxes torn by yelling hounds?

Of wheeling pigeons slaughtered for a prize?

We make no mention of the common use,

 

Of otter hunting, grouse and pheasant drives.

And of the sport termed noble, where the stag

Is forced upon the guns that lay him low.

No doubt, two blacks can never make one white,

Nor multiplying blacks turn black to grey;

But if to brutalise mankind be thought amiss,

Then there are other ways, than fighting cocks.

 

“Still that’s beside our purpose, which is this—

To scan the statute, microscope in hand,

And note if in its sweep humane, we see

A roosting place for fighting chanticleer.

And there we find, or rather fail to find,

The name of “Cock” among the saving list

Of nineteen beasts protected by the law,

Though thus the list concludes, “and other kinds
Of animals domestic,” or like words.

Are we to find Game Cocks, domestic fowls?

Are we to hold that birds, are animals?

Our view is quite the contrary, or else

There’s not a beast, bird, fish, or insect but

The term “domestic” would to them apply,

And make it penal e’en to slay a louse.

 

“And while, in other parts of this same Act,

We find “Cock” followed by the general phrase,

“Or other kind of animal,” we hold

It bears not on the matter now in hand,

But only serves to show that Parliament,

When brooding, clucking, hen-like, o’er this Act,

Had Cocks well in their eye, and plainly did,

Of purpose full, omit them from the list;

And while bear-fights, bull-fights, dog-fights, and all

Vile sports and brutish cruelty to beasts,

The spirit and the letter of the law

 

Do quite forbid, unanimous we hold
Cock-fighting is a lawful use of Cocks,
And finding so we liberate these men.

 

“It will be said, this Statute has been read

Reversely in our sister England, where

It is the Charter of proud Chanticleer;

But what of that? It alters not our mind!

But only shews, that they, of feebler clay,

Stick not at trifles, so the end be good,

And let the heart o’erbeat the legal mind;

While we, of sterner stuff, fail not to find

Motes in the sunshine of their simple wits,

And gnats to strain out of their cups of wine;

For in the nice accomplishment and use

Of splitting hairs, and weighing feathers small,

Of riddling wisdom from a peck of words,

We are more skilled, more subtle, more profound

Than our legal brethren of the South.”

Whereat five horse-hair wigs again bowed down

In low obeisance to the mighty sage,

And straight the Court was cleared of cocks and men.

Originally posted 2018-04-23 05:18:00.