I.—CRICKET FIGHTS
China never knew those horrible arena fights which were the passing pleasures, and will be the eternal shame, of ancient Rome. We never gave for the amusement of our refined folk the sight of bloody fights between men and wild animals, “the whilom joy of the young vestal virgin.” So it will be useless to look in China for any statue of a dying gladiator, or to search the ruins of the Colosseum. Nor has the bull-fight—last vestige of the tragic Circenses of long ago—ever been seen in China. We do, however, have animal fights, but it will be seen that there is nothing very terrible about them.
To begin with, we set crickets to fight against each other. Yes, crickets. The modest denizens of the grass are terrible fighters, good company as they also are. Their fights, though wanting in mise en scène, are none the less interesting, and the people crowd to witness them. The crickets, once collected for the purpose in the fields, are very carefully trained, each prisoner being lodged in a little bamboo cage. Its food consists of grains of rice, to which a few leaves of salad are added. After having been trained in this way for some days, the captive is set at liberty temporarily, that is to say, and in a very relative manner. The object of his release, as a matter of fact, is only to give him the opportunity of trying his strength against some veteran of the cricket-ring.
The two combatants are placed in a bowl, which is generally made of wood, so as to prevent them from slipping about too much. The trainer tickles their heads with a hair, to work them up to a sufficient degree of hatred and bad feeling. When this point has been reached, they dash violently against each other, and the first shock upsets one of the combatants, and decides the victory. The vanquished withdraws, ashamed and resigned. The victor, intoxicated with delight, claps his hands, and celebrates his triumph with piercing cries.
As soon as the fighting powers of the different insects have been tested by successive rehearsals, the more robust are picked out, and on these devolves the honour of appearing as champions in the public arena. Bets will be made on each of them with as much interest and passion as in Europe are made about horses. I hasten to add that these bets never exceed a few pence in value. The bettors are thus able to indulge themselves in their favourite pastime more frequently.