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No minister wore a surplice. No child was signed in baptism with a cross. The very pastimes of the world had to conform themselves to the law of God. The theatres were closed. Sunday sports were summarily abolished. There were no more races, no more bull-baitings, no more cock-fighting, no more dances under the Maypole. Christmas had to pass without its junketings, or mummers, or mince-pies.
Horses, dogs, even rats, are now more safe from wanton brutality than great numbers of men and women in the eighteenth century. To any one who studies that period, the stocks, the whipping post, the gibbet, cock fights, prize-fights, bull-baitings, accounts of rapes, are simply the outward signs of an all-pervading cruelty.
Courts-martial had only just been introduced, and Sir Philip could believe in a Whig invention doing injustice to a member of a loyal family, so that his doors were open to his nephew, and Sedley haunted them whenever he had no other resource; but he spent most of his time between Newmarket and other sporting centres, and contrived to get a sort of maintenance by bets at races, cock-fights, and bull-baitings, and by extensive gambling.
The Thames had no bridges, and hundreds of boats plied between London side and Southwark, where were most of the theatres, the bull-baitings, the bear-fighting, the public gardens, the residences of the hussies, and other amusements that Bankside, the resort of all classes bent on pleasure, furnished high or low.
They frequently give exhibitions of their horsemanship, in races, bull-baitings, etc.; but as we were not ashore during any holyday, we saw nothing of it. Monterey is also a great place for cock-fighting, gambling of all sorts, fandangos, and every kind of amusement and knavery.
He loved the rough exercises of wrestling, boxing, leaping, and quarterstaff, and frequented, when he could obtain leisure, the bull-baitings and foot-ball matches, by which the burgh was sometimes enlivened.
Such were the amusements and such the moral reflections of a country tradesman in the middle of the last century, Fielding, Smollett, and the other novelists described the same kind of life: the same succession of brawls, drunken sprees, cock-fights, boxing matches, and bull-baitings. It would be difficult to imagine a state of society more ripe for a revival. Mr.
"My friend," said he, "I suppose in your own country you have been very much used to bull-baitings, otherwise you would never have dared to encounter such a fierce creature. I must confess, though I can tame most animals, I never was more frightened in my life than when I saw him break loose; and without your assistance, I do not know what would have become of me."
The Thames had no bridges, and hundreds of boats plied between London side and Southwark, where were most of the theatres, the bull-baitings, the bear-fighting, the public gardens, the residences of the hussies, and other amusements that Bankside, the resort of all classes bent on pleasure, furnished high or low.
They frequently give exhibitions of their horsemanship in races, bull-baitings, &c.; but as we were not ashore during any holiday, we saw nothing of it. Monterey is also a great place for cock-fighting, gambling of all sorts, fandangos, and various kinds of amusement and knavery.
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