At the Swan, Ash Vale, close to Basingstoke Canal, and at present kept by Mr. John Tupper, the well-known army trainer, there still remains one of the last rat-pits—of course, now not utilized for the sport. Ratting survived cock-fighting for a time, the usual method being to turn a dog in with a number of rats, which he was expected to kill within a given number of minutes. The pit was about six feet in diameter with a high unclimbable rim either of wood or polished cement.
A more humane, but very exciting rough-and-tumble competition may occasionally be witnessed in the public-houses of some east-end districts, and is entitled “Boot hunting.” Various individuals who pay an entrance fee of perhaps sixpence, group themselves on a platform at the end of the room, and remove their footgear which are put into a barrel, shaken up, and then deposited in a heap. The signal is given, each man scrambles for his own property, and to the first who succeeds in getting his boots on the prize is awarded. Sometimes the competitors are chosen by the audience whose “gate-money” provides the trophy.
We can hardly trace the sites even of the inns and alehouses between Ware and Tottenham mentioned in the “Compleat Angler.” But, like old Isaac Walton, the modern piscator loves to sample “the good liquor that our honest forefathers did use to drink of, which preserved their health, and made them to live so long and to do so many good deeds!” The Talbot has disappeared from Ashbourne on the Dove, but there are “other inns as good.” The Isaac Walton Inn, on the Dove, has been for many years a favourite resort of anglers. On the banks of the Thames, Kennet, Arun, or Great Ouse, there are hostelries in which anglers much do congregate at eventide during the season; on their walls gigantic trout (suspected by the stranger to be modelled in plaster), float in most lifelike attitude within a sea of painted glass. And we know of snug bar parlours in the backwoods of Bermondsey, Finsbury, and Bethnal Green, whither about nine o’clock men laden with rods and heavy baskets or sacks may be observed hurrying along to be in time for the “weighing in.”
The inn yards of Bishopsgate and Southwark witnessed the early performances of the English drama; and the auditorium of the theatre takes its form from the tiers of galleries surrounding the “pit” which the players found there. Music halls have also grown up from the impromptu concerts in the taverns. The older music halls, like the Oxford, Middlesex, or Deacon’s, were twenty years ago simply public-houses with a hall behind them, where a chairman, armed with a hammer to maintain silence, announced each performer by name and arranged the order of the programme.
Many inns contain museums. At the Marquis of Granby, near New Cross Station, there is a magnificent collection of hunting-knives, rifles, etc. The late Mr. Frank Churchill, of the White Lion, Warlingham, displayed in the ancient chimney-corner of that house gridirons, spits, and domestic utensils of ancient pattern, and Mr. Alfred Churchill had a similar museum at the White Hart, at Bletchingley.
For some unknown reason the police are discouraging these museums, and in some districts publicans are warned against harbouring games of any kinds. Even good old English manly pastimes like bowls and skittles are under the ban of the licensing magistrates.
The other day we discussed the matter with an old yeoman farmer, while we watched a quartette of young fellows playing a kind of bagatelle. He declared that the effect of this policy, now so sedulously pursued by the police, of depriving public-house frequenters of any species of recreation whatever, was fast driving young men into the political clubs where extravagant gambling and hard drinking, especially of spirits, was the fashion. Many promising careers had been ruined in this way—and this we may corroborate from our own experience in various towns. With tears in his eyes the old man confessed to us that his vote had blackballed his own boy from admission into the local club. The total expenditure of the group during a whole evening’s amusement at the public-house amounted to a sum not exceeding a shilling; perchance at the club they might have been tempted to squander away at least half their week’s earnings.