COCK-FIGHTING AND COCK-THROWING.
Cock-fighting was another barbarous amusement that was very early in great favor in England. Fitz-stephen, who died in 1191, records that in London "every year at Shrove Tuesday the schoolboys do bring cocks to their master, and all the forenoon they delight themselves in cock-fighting"; and it is not until the 16th century that we find Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's School, objecting to it as an amusement for the pupils.
The good lady who founded the Nottingham grammar school in 1513 was content with restricting the sport to "twice a year."
In Scotland cock-fights were sanctioned as a school recreation till the middle of the last century, and the master received a fee, called "cock-penny," from the boys on the occasion. As late as 1790, at Applecross, in Ross-shire, "the cock-fight dues" were reckoned as a part of the schoolmaster's income.
Shakespeare has only two or three allusions to cock-fighting in his works. Antony says of Octavius (Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 3. 36):—
"His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds."
Dr. Johnson, in a note on the passage, says: "The ancients used to match quails as we match cocks." The birds were inhooped, or confined within a circle, to keep them "up to the scratch"; or, according to some authorities, the one that was driven out of the hoop was considered beaten.