_Slender._ That's meat and drink to me, now: I have seen Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but, I warrant you, the women have so cried and shriek'd at it, that it passed [passed description]; but women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured rough things." _Sackerson_ was a famous bear exhibited at Paris Garden, a popular bear-garden on the Bankside in London, near the Globe Theatre. An old epigram refers to the place and the animal thus:-- "Publius, a student of the common law, To Paris-garden doth himself withdraw, Leaving old Ployden, Dyer, and Broke alone, To see old Harry Hunkes and Sacarson;" that is, neglecting Ployden and other writers on law for the sports at the bear-garden. For the bear to get loose was a serious matter. We read in a diary of 1554 that at a bear-baiting on the Bankside "the great blind bear broke loose, and in running away he caught a servingman by the calf of the leg and bit a great piece away," so that "within three days after he died." James I. prohibited baiting on Sundays, but did not otherwise discourage it. In the time of the Commonwealth Paris Garden was shut up, the bear was killed, and the amusement forbidden; but with the Restoration it was revived, and continued to be popular until the early part of the next century. In 1802 an attempt was made in Parliament to suppress it altogether, but the House of Commons by a majority of thirteen refused to pass the bill. It was not until the year 1835 that baiting was finally abolished by an act of Parliament, forbidding "the keeping of any house, pit, or other place, for baiting or fighting any bull, bear, dog, or other animal." 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."