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Updated: October 14, 2025
It was painted a bright yellow, with the shafts and wheels picked out in black; and the driver sat in the orthodox sporting style, on cushions piled about two feet above the rail. The horse was a bay, a well-looking animal enough; but with something of a flash and dog-fighting air about him, nevertheless, which accorded both with the vehicle and his master.
When bull-baiting was prohibited by law the sportsmen of the period turned their attention to dog-fighting, and for this pastime the Bulldogs were specially trained. The chief centres in London where these exhibitions took place were the Westminster Pit, the Bear Garden at Bankside, and the Old Conduit Fields in Bayswater.
‘There is one thing,’ said I, ‘connected with this matter which surprises me—your own lukewarmness. Yes, making every allowance for your natural predilection for dog-fighting, and your present enamoured state of mind, your apathy at the commencement of such a movement is to me unaccountable.’
‘No,’ said Francis Ardry, ‘something higher and much more rational than dog-fighting at present occupies my thoughts.’ ‘Dear me,’ said I, ‘I thought I had heard you say that there was nothing like it!’ ‘Like what?’ said Francis Ardry. ‘Dog-fighting, to be sure,’ said I. ‘Pooh,’ said Francis Ardry; ‘who but the gross and unrefined care anything for dog-fighting?
They say that light fare begets light dreams; my fare at that time was light enough; but I had anything but light dreams, for at that period I had all kind of strange and extravagant dreams, and amongst other things I dreamt that the whole world had taken to dog-fighting; and that I, myself, had taken to dog-fighting, and that in a vast circus I backed an English bulldog against the bloodhound of the Pope of Rome.
Why, the gemmen in the House would leave Pitt himself, if he were alive, to come to my pit. There were three of the best of them here to-night, all great horators.—Get on with you, what comes next?’ ‘Why, there’s learning and letters.’ ‘Pretty things, truly, to keep people from dog-fighting.
When I talks of dog-fighting, I of course means rat-catching and badger-baiting, ay, and bull-baiting too, just as when I speaks religiously, when I says one I means not one but three. And talking of religion puts me in mind that I have something else to do besides chaffing here, having a batch of dogs to send off by this night's packet to the Pope of Rome."
God bless you. This being rather a shorter address than they expected, was received with some displeasure, and cries of 'A speech! a speech! which might have been complied with, but that John Grueby, making a mad charge upon them with all three horses, on his way to the stables, caused them to disperse into the adjoining fields, where they presently fell to pitch and toss, chuck-farthing, odd or even, dog-fighting, and other Protestant recreations.
Scarcely knowing what to say, I made an observation at random. "You show by your own conduct," said I, "that there are other things worth following besides dog-fighting. You practise rat-catching and badger-baiting as well." The dog-fancier eyed me with supreme contempt. "Your friend here," said he, "might well call you a new one.
They say that light fare begets light dreams; my fare at that time was light enough; but I had anything but light dreams, for at that period I had all kind of strange and extravagant dreams, and amongst other things I dreamt that the whole world had taken to dog-fighting; and that I, myself, had taken to dog-fighting, and that in a vast circus I backed an English bulldog against the bloodhound of the Pope of Rome.
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