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Animal Rights History Timeline » [1660-1785] Enlightenment: » Samuel Pegge

Samuel Pegge

A Memoir on Cock-Fighting

[1773] Samuel Pegge, A Memoir on Cock-Fighting; Wherein the Antiquity of It, as a Pastime, is Examined and Stated; Some Errors of the Moderns Concerning It are Corrected; and the Retention of It amongst Christians is Absolutely Condemned and Proscribed, By the Rev. Mr. Pegge, in vol. 3 of Archaeologica: or Miscellaneous Tracts,&c (London, 1775; Google Books: Online Library of Free eBooks) 132-50.

Read at the Society of Antiquaries, March 12, 19, 1773.

I have often thought it most astonishing, that a mode of diversion so cruel and inhuman as that of cockfighting, should so generally prevail; that not only the ancients, barbarians, Greeks and Romans should have adopted it, but that a practice so savage and heathenish should be continued by Christians of all sorts, and even pursued in these better and more enlightened times. (132)

The cock is not only a most useful animal, but stately in his figure, and magnificent in his plumage.—Aristotle compares him to the king of Persia.—His tenderness towards his brood is such, that, contrary to the custom of many other males, he will scratch and provide for them with an assiduity almost equal to that of the hen.—He was highly esteemed in some countries, and in others was even held sacred; insomuch that one cannot regret, that a creature so useful and noble should, by a strange fatality, be so enormously abused by us. It is true—the massacre of Shrove-Tuesday, is now in a declining way; and, in a few years, it is to be hope, will be totally disused; but the cock-pit still continues a reproach to the humanity of Englishmen, and to their religion, the purest, the tenderness, and most compassionate of all others, not even excepting the Brachmanic. (146-7)

What aggravates the reproach and the disgrace upon us Englishman, is those species of fighting which are called the the Battle-royal and the Welsh-main.—There are scenes so bloody, as almost to be shocking to relate; and yet as many may not be acquainted with the horrible nature of them, it may be proper, for the excitement of our aversion and detestation, to describe them in a few words. In the former an unlimited number of fowls are pitted; and when they have slaughtered one another for the diversion, of the otherwise generous and humane Englishman, the single surviving bird is to be esteemed the victor, and carries away the prize. The main Welsh consists, we will suppose, of sixteen pairs of cocks; of these the sixteen conquerors are pitted a second time; the eight conquerors of these are pitted at third time; the four conquerors the fourth time; and lastly, the two conquerors of these are pitted a fifth time; so that, incredible barbarity ! thirty-one cocks are sure to be most inhumanly murdered for the sport and pleasure, the noise and nonsense, nay, I may say, the profane cursing and swearing, of those who have the effrontery to call themselves, with all these bloody doings, want this all this impiety about them, Christians It is a great doubt with me, whether the sons of men were indulged the use of animal food before the flood; our grant, or charter, in respect of sustenance, seems a that period to have been enlarged. However, of this we may be confident, that, without running into all the extravagance and superstition of the Pythagoreans and Bramins, we have no right, no power or authority, to abuse and torment any of God's creatures, or needlessly to sport with their lives; but, on the contrary, ought to use them with all possible tenderness, moderation, and reverence; a doctrine indisputably true, though so totally inconsistent with the outrageous practices we have here been condemning. (148-9)

To end this long essay; Cock-fighting is an heathenish mode of diversion from the first; and at this day ought certainly to be confined to those barbarous nations above-mentioned, the Chinese, Persiona, Malayans, and the sill more savage Americans; whose irrational and sanguinary practices ought in no case to be object of imitation to the polite and civilized Europeans. (149)