The Romans may take the blame for introducing blood sports to Britain: vast crowds watching animals tearing lumps out of each other, or out of people, or vice-versa. However, I suspect this gruesome entertainment was around long before the Romans arrived. Town members gathering to see a ne’er-do-well getting their just desserts were no doubt encouraged to witness this brutality by the town elders to make sure those with a similarly violent disposition behaved themselves.
By Shakespeare’s time in the late 1500s, the public’s taste for blood sports had reached fever pitch. Rat baiting, badger baiting, bull baiting, dog fights and cock fights were very popular, but the most popular of all was bear baiting, supported by kings and commoners alike. King James I had his own polar bear – in my humble opinion, this smacks of cheating.
The spectacle generally involved a bear being tied to a stake with dogs then set upon it. The aim wasn’t to kill the bear, but to have chunks ripped from it and a few dogs thrown into the air to great cheers from the baying crowds. Some of the bears became quite famous and were even given names like Ned Whiting, Harry Hills and Blind Bess.The name of the latter suggests that poor old Bess may have had another disadvantage.
Cromwell’s blood sports crackdown
During Oliver Cromwell’s reign bear baiting was banned as part of the moral crackdowns of the mid-17th century – not because it was cruel, but because the Puritans thought the baying masses were enjoying it too much. However, following the ending of The Protectorate it all kicked off again and new arenas for carrying out cruelty were built. Remnants of these can still be seen in street names that may include the words ‘Ring’ or ‘Bear Ring’.
Frivolous and unnecessary entertainment was greatly frowned upon during Cromwell’s Puritan times: only work, sleep, worship of God and making babies were encouraged. Oliver and his wife Elizabeth did their bit by having nine children, but I’m sure Elizabeth was expected to keep her eyes tightly shut during conception in case she inadvertently witnessed Oliver enjoying himself.
From baiting to coursing
Many of the blood sports that involved baiting or pitting one animal against another began to lose favour and eventually died out.They were belatedly banned in 1835, but hunting remained very popular. One form of hunting was hare coursing, which has a tenuous link to the breed of dog we now know as a lurcher.
Hare coursing involves, strangely enough, a hare and two greyhounds. Each greyhound would be owned by a local gentleman who would bet on his dog against the dog of a neighbouring gentleman.
The aim wasn’t necessarily to actually catch the hare. As all three animals could run like the clappers, another gentleman would follow on horseback, charged with judging each dog on their merits such as chase and movement. However, if one of the dogs was being left behind and took a shortcut to anticipate where the hare was going, the owner ran the risk of disqualification.
A dog using its intelligence to anticipate in this way was described as ‘lurching’. Although this was against the rules of hare coursing, poachers soon began to breed dogs with this intelligence and running ability. The best lurchers were a cross between a running dog such as a greyhound, deerhound or wolfhound, and a sighting dog such as a sheep dog or terrier. As such, lurchers are very diverse in size and appearance.
57 varieties
We used to describe a dog with no obvious breed as a Heinz 57, which we believed were the healthiest. They tended not to have many of the problems resulting from inbreeding that some pedigree dogs have – German Shepherds (Alsatians) with bad hips, squat-nosed dogs that struggle to breath such as bull dogs and… oh what do they call that dog?…it’s an untidy place where they keep lots of animals…ah yes…a Shih Tzu.
Many of these traditional hunting sports were eventually banned in the Hunting Act of 2004, but strangely enough one sport that pits one animal against another until one is rendered senseless is still going strong, and that is boxing.
Boxing: a gentlemanly pursuit
Boxing is yet another sport that originated with one gentleman betting on his champion against the champion of a rival. According to the London Prize Ring Rules laid down in 1743, a circle was marked on the ground where the fight was to be carried out, and the baying crowd naturally formed just outside the circle, though sometimes the crowd would ‘interfere’ with the developing mayhem.
One or more of the gentlemen, who might have had quite a lot of money riding on his champion, took umbrage to these developments and arranged for four coachmen to stand in a square with their whips outstretched to another coachman stood on the adjacent corner to keep the crowd back from the ring – thus, the boxing ring became a square.
There may be reason to frown upon the brutality of the sport of boxing– for example,the boxing glove is not intended to protect against any injury to the recipient of a blow, but solely to protect the hand of the antagonist delivering it. However, I’m of the opinion that violent sports, or the training that is associated with any contact sports, have a useful part to play in giving a physical outlet for young people, both male and female. As we get a little older, we find that the violence and aggression has trickled out and left behind lots of aches and pains.
And now something a little lighter
Any-road-up enough of this blood, snot and mayhem, let’s try to have a laugh.
A chap fra Barnsley suffrin wi terrible piles went ta chemists an he said “Na-then lad as ta any arse cream?”
“Yes sir”, said the chemist, “do you want Magnum or Cornetto?”
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A chap from way down south decided to take a tour around some of the famous English Cathedrals. He made a start near his home town and visited St. Paul’s In London. As he was wondering about, he noticed a gold telephone on the wall with a sign that read, ‘Direct line to God £1,000.00’.He decided that he couldn’t afford and moved on.
He next visited Canterbury Cathedral and again noticed a gold telephone on the wall with a sign that read ‘Direct line to God £1,000.00’. He next went to Salisbury and there was also a gold telephone with the same message: ‘Direct line to God £1,000.00’. He was even more perplexed when he noticed the same message at Lincoln, Coventry, Ely and Liverpool Cathedrals.
He eventually found his way to York Minster and again there was a gold telephone on the wall but this time the sign read ‘Direct line to God 10 pence’.
Perplexed beyond belief, he waylaid a passing deacon and asked what was going on with the gold telephones, £1,000.00 everywhere else and just 10p here. The deacon said“Well it’s like this ere tha’sees lad, tha’s in Yorkshire now tha’nose so it’s nobut a local call”.
