The Sporting Dictionary, and Rural Repository, Volume 1 (of 2) / Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field

by William Taplin

BULL RUNNING

—is a pursuit of the bull in a way no less cruel and disgraceful to the humanity of this enlightened country than what has been before described. By custom in the manor of Tutbury, in Staffordshire, as mentioned at almost the head of the last article, a bull was given by the prior to the minstrels. After undergoing the torture of having his horns cut off, his ears and tail cropped and docked to the very stump, his nostrils filled with pepper, and his body besmeared with soap, he was turned out in such a pitiable state to be hunted, (this was called bull running;) and when taken, or held long enough to pull off some of his hair, he was then fastened to the stake, and baited. To the great honour, however, of the Duke of Devonshire, (Steward of Tutbury,) and not less so of the people who petitioned against it, the BULL RUNNING at Tutbury was entirely abolished in the year 1778.