Anahuac : or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern

by Edward B. Tylor

STEEL COCK-SPURS (4 inches long), WITH SHEATH AND PADDING.

Each bird has a sharp steel knife three or four inches long, just like a little scythe-blade, fastened over the natural spur before the fight commences. A leather sheath covers the weapon while the cocks are being put into the ring, and held with their beaks almost touching till they are furious. Then they are drawn back to opposite sides of the ring, the sheaths are taken off, and they fly at one another, giving desperate cuts with the steel blades.

The cockpit was a small round wooden shed, with the ring in the middle, and circular benches round it, rising one above another. The place was full of people, mostly Mexicans of the lower orders, smoking, betting, and talking sporting-slang. The betting was surprising, when one compared its amount with the appearance of the spectators, among whom there was hardly a decent coat to be seen. Every now and then, a dirty scoundrel in a shabby leather jacket would walk round the ring with a handful of gold, offering the odds—ten to five, ten to seven, ten to nine, or whatever they might be, in gold ounces, which coins are worth above three pounds apiece.

Cockfighting is such a passion here that we thought it as well to see it for once. Santa Ana, now he has retired from politics, spends his time at Carthagena pretty much entirely in this his favourite sport, which forms one of the great items among the pleasures and excitements of a Mexican life. We saw a couple of mains fought, in which the victorious birds were dreadfully mangled, while the vanquished were literally cut to pieces; as much money changed hands as we should have thought sufficient to buy up the whole of the people present, cockpit and all. Then, being both agreed that it was a disgusting sight, we went away.

Before we left Mexico we were taken by our man Antonio to a cutler’s shop, where the principal trade seemed to be the making of these cuchillos to arm the cocks with. We bought a couple of pairs of them, and had them carefully fitted up. The old cutler was quite delighted, and remarked that foreigners must acknowledge that there were some things which were done better in Mexico than anywhere else. I fear we left him under the pleasing impression that we were taking home the blades to introduce as models in our own benighted country.

The Mexican is a great gambler. Bad fortune he bears with the greatest equanimity. You never hear of his committing suicide after being ruined at play; he just goes away, and sets to work to earn enough for a fresh stake. The government have tried to put down gambling in the State of Mexico, but not with much success. For three days in the year, however, at the festival of San Agustín de las Cuevas, public gambling-tables are tolerated, though soldiers and officials are strictly forbidden to play, an injunction which they carefully set at nought. Oddly enough, the government, while doing all it could to keep its own functionaries away from the monte table, did not scruple to send a military escort to convoy the bankers with their bags of gold from Mexico to San Agustín. On one of the three days, Mr. Christy and I went there. There was a great crowd, this time mostly a well-dressed one, and the cockpit was on a large scale. But of course the great attraction was the monte, which was being played everywhere, the stakes in some places being coppers, in others silver, while more aristocratic establishments would allow no stake under a gold ounce. Dead silence prevailed in these places, and the players seemed to pride themselves upon not showing the slightest change in their countenances, whether they won or lost. The game itself is very simple, and has some points of resemblance to that of lansquenet, known in Europe. The first two cards in the pack, say a four and a king, are laid down, face up, on the table, and the gamblers put down their money against one or the other. Then the croupier deals the cards out slowly and solemnly one after another, calling out their names as they fall, until he comes—say to a king; when those who have betted on the king have their stakes doubled, and the others lose theirs. The banker has a great advantage to compensate him for his expense and risk. If the first card which is thrown out be one of the two numbers on the table, the banker withholds a quarter of the stake he would otherwise have lost, paying only a stake and three-quarters, instead of two stakes. Now, as there are forty cards in a Spanish pack, two of which have been already thrown out, the chances for a throw favourable to the banker are about one in six, so that he may reckon on an average profit of about two per cent, on all the money staked.

As for the players, they sat round the table, carefully noticing the course of the games, and regulating their play accordingly, as they do at Baden-Baden and Hombourg. I suppose that now and then these scientific calculators must be told that their whole theory of chances is the most baseless delusion, but they certainly do not believe it; and at any rate this curious pseudo-science of winning by skill at games of pure chance will last our time, if not longer.

On some tables there were as much as three or four thousand gold ounces. This struck us the more because we had often tried to get gold coin for our own use, instead of the silver dollars, the general currency of the country, of which twenty pounds’ worth to carry home on a hot day was enough to break one’s heart. We often tried to get gold, but the answer was always that what little there was in the country was in the hands of the gamblers, whose operations could not be worked on a large scale without it.