Breslaw, the conjurer, began his London appearances in 1772, in Cockspur Street. In 1774 he gave his entertainment on alternate days here and at the “King’s Arms” opposite the Royal Exchange. It is told of him while performing at Canterbury, he promised the Mayor that if the duration of his licence were extended he would give one night’s receipts to the poor. The Mayor agreed, and the conjurer had a full house. Hearing nothing further of the money, the Mayor called on Breslaw to inquire. The following dialogue ensued. “Mr. Mayor, I have distributed the money myself.” “Pray, sir, to whom?” “To my own company, than whom none can be poorer.” “This is a trick!” “Sir, we live by tricks.” [125] Baggio Rebecca, decorative painter, died in 1808. Of his election as Associate of the Royal Academy in 1771, Leslie says: “Academic advancement was rapid in those days. Every man who displayed the least ability was certain of election.” Rebecca had a small share in decorating the Royal Academy lecture-room at Somerset House. [126] Most of these localities have ceased to be the resort of bird-fanciers. To-day the chief London quarters for song-birds are St. Giles’s, Leadenhall Market, and, above all, Sclater Street in Spitalfields, known as “Club Row.” [127] The sights in this famous cockpit are recorded by Hogarth in his print of 1759, and by Rowlandson in Ackermann’s _Microcosm of London_ (1808). Bainbridge Street survives as a narrow lane behind New Oxford Street, leading from Dyott Street to the back of Meux’s brewery. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the cockpit behind Gray’s Inn (its exact locality is not easily discovered), enjoyed “the only vogue” (Hatton). Mr. William B. Boulton (_The Amusements of Old London_, 1901) quotes a description of it by Von Uffenbach, a German traveller, who says it was specially built for the sport. Pickled-Egg Walk, afterwards Crawford’s Passage (now Crawford Passage, Ray Street, Clerkenwell), was named after the proprietor of the Pickled-Egg Tavern, who brought from the West of England a recipe for pickled eggs and supplied this novel cate to his customers. Pink mentions a tradition that Charles II. once paused here in a suburban journey and ate a pickled egg. The mains fought at the cockpit here were regularly advertised in the newspapers. Charles Hughes and Charles Dibdin, the song-writer, opened the “Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy” in 1782. Cock-fighting was made illegal in 1849, but a statement in _Cocking and its Votaries_ (1895), by S. A. T. (for private circulation), makes it quite manifest that “not a few wealthy men in England still follow up this sport, stealthily but with much zeal--a fact that is as discreditable to the guardians of the law as it is to themselves.” I quote Mr. J. Charles Cox in his admirable edition of Strutt’s _Sports and Pastimes_ (1903).