Upper Class: "Winged him, my lord!"
Lower Class: "There's another, 'Arry!"
Pigeon-shooting and bull-fighting were another matter altogether. In 1870 an abortive attempt was made to introduce the latter at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, and the Islington-Spanish bull-fight is treated with a happy mixture of ridicule and contempt in a contribution to Punch's "Evenings from Home." The proceedings appear to have been tame enough, and the bulls were probably "doped," yet enough of the real thing remained to warrant the hostile reception which the entertainment received. At its close the "Islington Spaniards" dispersed to the Islington public-houses. Punch returned to the subject a month later. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had interfered to good purpose. The Islington bull-fighters had been summoned before a magistrate and fined, and their "entertainment" had been stopped. Punch seized the occasion to add a comment which, on the very day on which, in 1921, I write these lines, is as timely as it was more than fifty years ago:—
From Islington to Wormwood Scrubbs is not far, and it is much to be feared by the tame-pigeon-shooting nobility and gentry that the officers of an impartial Association, vigilant to protect poor animals from cruelty, will as soon as possible be down upon the Gun Club.
"TO MEMORY DEAR"
Enthusiastic Cricketer: "Ah, last season was a good one! I'd both eyes blacked in one match, and two fingers smashed in the return match the same week! But give me 1870 over again. I got the ball on my forehead at 'short leg,' and was senseless for three-quarters of an hour!"