Three or four more dogs are set on in turn, and the short winter afternoon is already half over. People begin to clamour for the second bull. But they are not destined to part with the first without a little more excitement. Some young men growing bold by familiarity with the scene, take an opportunity of tossing the loose chain over the animal's back. This makes him start forward with great impetuosity, and in doing so he tears the staple out of the post to which the chain is fastened. "The Bull is loose!" Away scampers the crowd in every direction. A woman who had been selling apples and cakes out of a large basket is upset in her flight, and her wares are scattered. Several others fall over her prostrate form, but before further mischief is done, the animal is again secured. A single tree grows in the middle of the market-place. In the boughs a number of small boys, early in the day, had taken up their position, and there witnessed all the fun. Not knowing how else to secure the bull while the staple in the post is undergoing repair, the men pass the chain round this tree. The bull, finding itself thus robbed of a liberty which just now had seemed to offer a prospect of escape from his tormentors, frantic with rage and terror, makes wild rushes forward, jerking and swaying the tree to the great alarm of the urchins in the boughs. The crowd enjoying their fright, cry out to increase it, "the tree is coming down." This is too much for the boys' courage, down they come like apples in a gale of wind, some on the bull's back, some in the slush and mud. The whole crowd except a few anxious parents, is convulsed with laughter. Luckily the boys are got out of the way of the bull, who seems fairly puzzled at this new form of attack, and no one is seriously hurt.[11]
It is now determined to dismiss the bull to the neighbouring slaughter-house. The poor creature is led away, covered with blood, and foam, and sweat, a very picture of distress and exhaustion, and of the madness that comes of fear, rage, and pain.
The second bull is coming out fresh and strong, and good to keep up the sport for another hour or two. But we have seen enough, and may well return to Reading with our young friend who has been looking on from the window. The light is already failing. It is damp and chill, and will be dark before he reaches home. It is well, too, to escape the rough horse-play which grows rougher as the day closes. Already there have been several fights among the dog-owners and others, and before the night is over there will be many more, and not impossibly lives may be lost. Even the lives of women were not always safe after the passions of men had been roused by these scenes of cruelty, sustained by a free flow of the drink, which makes men "full of quarrel and offence." Witness the Parish Registers, where we find the entry, "Martha May, aged 55, (who was hurt by fighters after Bull-baiting) was buried Dec. 31st 1808." Poor Martha May! she must have been badly hurt, and only lived six days, as we reckon, (allowing four days for the interval between her death and burial), after her last bull-baiting on St. Thomas's Day in Wokingham Market Place in 1808.
There remains one other point on which information is needed. The dogs were evidently highly trained. Knowing quite well what was expected of them, eager as grey-hounds with the quarry in view to escape from the master's hand, and to fly through the hoops at the bull's nose. Where and how did they get their training? There are still old inhabitants in Wokingham who can answer this question by word of mouth. For weeks before the baiting, on every moonlight night, it was common practice for a party of men with three or four dogs to visit some field or park, and there driving an ox, which they had before noted as suitable for their purpose, into a corner of the field, set on their dogs in order, according to the received rules of baiting. In the morning the owner would be furious at finding his best ox in a pitiable condition, and useless for the market for months to come. But so general was the interest in bull-baiting that he got no more pity than the farmer's wife, whose ducks are all killed by a fox, gets now from her neighbours.
Looking back on bull-baiting and similar sports, that were contemporaneous with it, and comparing them with the scenes of violence that formed popular entertainments in the generations that went before, and with the sports and games of our own day, the conclusion cannot be escaped that the world's history shews a well-marked line at progress in the gentler virtues, and the growth of sympathy between man and his fellow, and between man and the animals around him, that tends to brand cruelty wherever found as a vice.
It is the duty of every one to do what he can to further this progress to quicken this growth, and to practise and encourage only those amusements which seem suitable for the development of the best side in the character of the people.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Erasmus, the reformer, speaks of 'many herds' of bears which he saw being trained for baiting when he was in England in the reign of Henry VIII.