BY C. A. FINSTERBUSCH
There is an old axiom between sportsmen saying that the cock that stands the gaff test gamely, will stand any test. That is to say: naked heel up to the sword-like slasher.
True, a dead game cock will stand any punishment under any circumstances. He will show fight after cooling down, and will fight day after day, until sexual organs are injured,—the health or integrity of which are greatly responsible for his gameness. Because we must understand that gameness is the will to eliminate the adversary who is a natural sexual competitor, and that gameness is a mental quality, by means of which the will to fight is greater than the pain of wounds, the fever of disease, or the depression of a battered condition. If a cock shows fight the second or third day, despite being cut down badly, it is pretty sure to assume that besides a general battered condition, his sexual apparatus is in perfect order. Not only his testicles, but all their secondary attributes, as kidneys, nerves and cerebral centre. General fever will affect his mental and physical condition, but if not impairing the urine-sexual glands, you may expect gameness. But a game cock, whose testicles are injured, either by a cut or feverish disease, is not willing to fight and is apt to run.
A capon will never show fight!
Integral masculinity, or better said, sexual capacity is a paramount condition for the cock, the man or any live being, to show fight. The gradual amount of gameness, courage and insensibility to injuries depends on how the sexual segregation influences the physique generally, and the nerves particularly. Remove the sexual organs of any being and you will notice, at once, that the fighting spirit left amounts to nil. But a true game cock in full possession of his sexual ability may be cut to ribbons and still have the desperate will to fight to the last. The game cock while fighting does not feel pain, therefore the alleged cruelty of cock fighting does not exist.
Those people that decry fighting as a cruel entertainment, and who really do not engage in any violent sport, are generally mentally effeminate, and do not know what a fight is for. They will leave business of masculine character to be taken over by women, whereas it has been prescribed by nature that the male has to lead the family. Effeminate men are unable to fight and lacking gameness it would be cruel to make them do so. But generally they are the loudest preachers.
It requires game cocks to fight, and dead game ones to stand the gaff. A game cock will stand any amount of steel, either if bred for natural spur or slasher. There should be no doubt about this. But that a cock will have better chances, if allowed to hurt with a more deadly weapon than that provided by nature, is a different chapter altogether.
Man has stepped in and has improved the sport from a spectacular point of view. The old-time naked heeler was not sufficiently efficient for modern views. On the other side, the sword-like slashers used in the Orient, was too much of a gambling proposition to satisfy the western cocker who looked for both winners and constant winners.
The modern steel gaff is an evolution from the old slasher. Intelligent observation, skilled workmanship, have produced it as generally known, through such states as the haip, the silver spur, old-time steel, etc. The constant ambition to produce some wonderful fatal twists, have produced freaks and fakes, highly interesting, no doubt, but too extravagant to pursue.
The law of decent cock fighting is to give both adversaries equal chances and that is why, on the square, a determined length and shape of steel brings out the best sport and gives the better cock chances to win. The long spurs, as well as slashers, are liable to be dangerous weapons when handled by a cowardly, frightened cock.
Naked heel fights, on the other side, may place a cock to disadvantage regarding length of spur and direction of same. It is in the moderate length spur where chances are evened and where it requires a really better cock to win.
Fighting with artificial spurs should have a majority of fatal decisions and it is therefore that the cocks used must be of a superior strain.
The Breeds.
We have enumerated elsewhere the principal breeds best adapted for carrying steel. Old English, Irish, French, Spanish and most of American cocks are by nature steel fighters.
The reader will have noticed that English breeders of game fowl lay a good deal of attention to colors, sometimes going to extremes that cockers this side of the ocean fail to understand. The object is to get at color schemes that should represent famous old-timers, all of which had a reputation for excellence. Contrary to American custom, the English exhibit game fowls at shows, and there is but little doubt that nothing has had such a deteriorating influence on the quality of O. E. G., than the show coop. Many birds that go today under the name of Old English Game are neither game nor O. E., fanciers going as far as crossing the old-time pit bird with Leghorns and other breeds to produce color specimens that may deceive a judge, who does not look for anything else.
Fortunately there is a club that cares for the preservation of the real pit fowl with greatest zeal, and the show it patronizes yearly at Oxford is different to most others.
British breeders of game, when talking or writing about cocking, have a queer habit of relating to same as a thing of the past, making the novice believe that the sport is not any more practiced in England. It may be said right here that happily this is not the case, cocking being carried out secretly, but with the skill and enthusiasm of yore.
Prominent English sportsmen have only recently undertaken an expedition to France to match British against French cocks, doubtless goaded by former failure to whip the “cock gaulois” on his ground.
As stated elsewhere, what the cocker considers a steel fighter is a quick acting, good flying, alert bird. Wing power is necessary as a steel fighter depends on his speed, and speed requires wing action to a degree. As artificial spurs are nowadays thin and extremely sharp, thigh power is not essential, as the weapons penetrate with the slightest effort. Moreover leg speed is highly desirable, obviously.
These circumstances point to a light built, flying bird, i. e., a Bankiva, and actually this type of bird has been basically responsible for the best steel fighters in Europe and America.
The pure Bankiva bird however, though game and courageous, has a drawback, common to most gallus-like flyers. They are easy to kill, a fact well known to hunters. This, and the lacking thigh power, induced, no doubt, early English cockers to cross the old-time bird with Oriental breeds. Malays, Chittagongs, Calcuttas and occasionally Asils. Orientals of Malay origin are notoriously tough and hard to kill. They stand hard punishment, and even deadly wounds, better than other birds, and kick with extreme force, even when exhausted or nearly dead.
In districts where cocks were fought naked heeled, such crosses evidently improved the native stock and, in fact, subsequently gave origin to such breeds as the Cornish. The showman laid his hand on the new breed, and at once the breed lost usefulness as it became conspicuous in the show ring.
It is difficult to obtain at present pure Bankiva type Old English game, in fact, the average English cocker widely prefers the stouter bird evolved from Oriental blood infusion. It has been stated that these birds are the better for the cross, and the writer has not the slightest evidence against this statement.
So it is that many American breeders who started on imported English stock, and who subsequently bred them pure, do not know where the Oriental streak comes from. About the same thing happened in Belgium, where the Bruges cock was produced and which, formerly, was intended to fight in natural spurs.
Colors.
The reader will have noticed that Oriental birds are rather uniform in their color scheme, the great majority being dark black-reds with pearl eyes. Strains of other colors are identified by their hue, but odd colors meet with disapproval and suspicion. The highest reputed of Indian game, the Asil, is divided in a few strains only, all dark and identified merely by their color. Indian cockers do not allow chance to creep in. They have experience extending some 20 to 30 centuries and kill off every off-colored bird. The writer has observed that highly successful breeders stuck firmly to a given color scheme, dark ones being, at that time, in preference. My own experience being further, that failures occur more frequently with lighter colors. Evidence therefrom may be gathered that color stands for efficiency or absence of same, in purebreds!
White hair on most live beings stands for vanishing youth, and white color in game birds is an indication that the physiologic function of feather coloring, intimately related with sexual functions and expression, is absent. We are sure that gameness and staying power depends on sexual integrity, and therefore, white birds lack a condition without which, breeding for the pit, is greatly problematic. The danger of white color has been realized among Asil breeders, and specimens appearing now and then are killed off right away.
For steel fighting, where staying power and wind are not essential, especially if long weapons are used, the danger of white color is not always apparent, and, in fact, white birds have been reputed to possess deadly heels and high speed, but, at the expense of endurance and gameness, I have made a big jump from extreme to extreme. Between very dark and white, there is a scale of colors, most of which have been identified by a standard denomination, such as Reds, Greys, Pyles, Duns, Blacks, etc., but this does not mean that colors are absent. In fact, there are much more colors lacking standard denomination than those generally used and recognized by the standard.
Do not run away with the idea that a dark colored bird is guaranteed game, but uniform color, inside standard game qualities, at once impress you of having a homogeneous foundation upon which you reckon your chances. If you allow your flock to come all colors, you will soon realize that difference in type, combs, etc., will soon creep in, and you will probably have a lot of mongrels in no time, evidencing that your birds are not pure but crossbreds, and as such unreliable to a degree. Color in game birds is a measure of breeding science.
Fighting Style.
A Spanish cocking veteran, whom I asked, why they fought naked heel instead of steel, being as it is that the peninsular game birds are typical steel fighters, expressed his views that any length of steel assists the cock to kill his adversary easily, while fighting in natural spurs, the same cock has to put a considerable larger amount of strength, skill and gameness to obtain the same result. Further, that all that is necessary for steel fighting is a cock able to cross his legs well. Power being quite unnecessary, and even in the way, when it was there at the expense of speed, as is the case in most Orientals.
This should give food for thought and a fair idea what steel fighting style should be. But, even experienced cockers differ considerably in their opinion about the advantage of speed and wing work, the crab about steel being that the shorter the heel the nearer you come to naked spurs, and the longer it is the nearer you come to the slasher. How a slasher cock lacking wing, as they say in Peru, is a dead cock.
It is queer that in lands where cocks are fought in steel, you may find any length of gaffs from short regulation up to true pitchforks. The difference in length used not being other commodity but the adaptation of the weapon to the bird’s capability. No doubt that the longer the heel the greater the opportunity for a chance winner.
I take the words of a wise and experienced sportsman to close: “Full drop gaffs, one and a half inches, brings out the best sport.”
There is an old axiom between sportsmen saying that the cock that stands the gaff test gamely, will stand any test. That is to say: naked heel up to the sword-like slasher.
True, a dead game cock will stand any punishment under any circumstances. He will show fight after cooling down, and will fight day after day, until sexual organs are injured,—the health or integrity of which are greatly responsible for his gameness. Because we must understand that gameness is the will to eliminate the adversary who is a natural sexual competitor, and that gameness is a mental quality, by means of which the will to fight is greater than the pain of wounds, the fever of disease, or the depression of a battered condition. If a cock shows fight the second or third day, despite being cut down badly, it is pretty sure to assume that besides a general battered condition, his sexual apparatus is in perfect order. Not only his testicles, but all their secondary attributes, as kidneys, nerves and cerebral centre. General fever will affect his mental and physical condition, but if not impairing the urine-sexual glands, you may expect gameness. But a game cock, whose testicles are injured, either by a cut or feverish disease, is not willing to fight and is apt to run.
A capon will never show fight!
Integral masculinity, or better said, sexual capacity is a paramount condition for the cock, the man or any live being, to show fight. The gradual amount of gameness, courage and insensibility to injuries depends on how the sexual segregation influences the physique generally, and the nerves particularly. Remove the sexual organs of any being and you will notice, at once, that the fighting spirit left amounts to nil. But a true game cock in full possession of his sexual ability may be cut to ribbons and still have the desperate will to fight to the last. The game cock while fighting does not feel pain, therefore the alleged cruelty of cock fighting does not exist.
Those people that decry fighting as a cruel entertainment, and who really do not engage in any violent sport, are generally mentally effeminate, and do not know what a fight is for. They will leave business of masculine character to be taken over by women, whereas it has been prescribed by nature that the male has to lead the family. Effeminate men are unable to fight and lacking gameness it would be cruel to make them do so. But generally they are the loudest preachers.
It requires game cocks to fight, and dead game ones to stand the gaff. A game cock will stand any amount of steel, either if bred for natural spur or slasher. There should be no doubt about this. But that a cock will have better chances, if allowed to hurt with a more deadly weapon than that provided by nature, is a different chapter altogether.
Man has stepped in and has improved the sport from a spectacular point of view. The old-time naked heeler was not sufficiently efficient for modern views. On the other side, the sword-like slashers used in the Orient, was too much of a gambling proposition to satisfy the western cocker who looked for both winners and constant winners.
The modern steel gaff is an evolution from the old slasher. Intelligent observation, skilled workmanship, have produced it as generally known, through such states as the haip, the silver spur, old-time steel, etc. The constant ambition to produce some wonderful fatal twists, have produced freaks and fakes, highly interesting, no doubt, but too extravagant to pursue.
The law of decent cock fighting is to give both adversaries equal chances and that is why, on the square, a determined length and shape of steel brings out the best sport and gives the better cock chances to win. The long spurs, as well as slashers, are liable to be dangerous weapons when handled by a cowardly, frightened cock.
Naked heel fights, on the other side, may place a cock to disadvantage regarding length of spur and direction of same. It is in the moderate length spur where chances are evened and where it requires a really better cock to win.
Fighting with artificial spurs should have a majority of fatal decisions and it is therefore that the cocks used must be of a superior strain.
The Breeds.
We have enumerated elsewhere the principal breeds best adapted for carrying steel. Old English, Irish, French, Spanish and most of American cocks are by nature steel fighters.
The reader will have noticed that English breeders of game fowl lay a good deal of attention to colors, sometimes going to extremes that cockers this side of the ocean fail to understand. The object is to get at color schemes that should represent famous old-timers, all of which had a reputation for excellence. Contrary to American custom, the English exhibit game fowls at shows, and there is but little doubt that nothing has had such a deteriorating influence on the quality of O. E. G., than the show coop. Many birds that go today under the name of Old English Game are neither game nor O. E., fanciers going as far as crossing the old-time pit bird with Leghorns and other breeds to produce color specimens that may deceive a judge, who does not look for anything else.
Fortunately there is a club that cares for the preservation of the real pit fowl with greatest zeal, and the show it patronizes yearly at Oxford is different to most others.
British breeders of game, when talking or writing about cocking, have a queer habit of relating to same as a thing of the past, making the novice believe that the sport is not any more practiced in England. It may be said right here that happily this is not the case, cocking being carried out secretly, but with the skill and enthusiasm of yore.
Prominent English sportsmen have only recently undertaken an expedition to France to match British against French cocks, doubtless goaded by former failure to whip the “cock gaulois” on his ground.
As stated elsewhere, what the cocker considers a steel fighter is a quick acting, good flying, alert bird. Wing power is necessary as a steel fighter depends on his speed, and speed requires wing action to a degree. As artificial spurs are nowadays thin and extremely sharp, thigh power is not essential, as the weapons penetrate with the slightest effort. Moreover leg speed is highly desirable, obviously.
These circumstances point to a light built, flying bird, i. e., a Bankiva, and actually this type of bird has been basically responsible for the best steel fighters in Europe and America.
The pure Bankiva bird however, though game and courageous, has a drawback, common to most gallus-like flyers. They are easy to kill, a fact well known to hunters. This, and the lacking thigh power, induced, no doubt, early English cockers to cross the old-time bird with Oriental breeds. Malays, Chittagongs, Calcuttas and occasionally Asils. Orientals of Malay origin are notoriously tough and hard to kill. They stand hard punishment, and even deadly wounds, better than other birds, and kick with extreme force, even when exhausted or nearly dead.
In districts where cocks were fought naked heeled, such crosses evidently improved the native stock and, in fact, subsequently gave origin to such breeds as the Cornish. The showman laid his hand on the new breed, and at once the breed lost usefulness as it became conspicuous in the show ring.
It is difficult to obtain at present pure Bankiva type Old English game, in fact, the average English cocker widely prefers the stouter bird evolved from Oriental blood infusion. It has been stated that these birds are the better for the cross, and the writer has not the slightest evidence against this statement.
So it is that many American breeders who started on imported English stock, and who subsequently bred them pure, do not know where the Oriental streak comes from. About the same thing happened in Belgium, where the Bruges cock was produced and which, formerly, was intended to fight in natural spurs.
Colors.
The reader will have noticed that Oriental birds are rather uniform in their color scheme, the great majority being dark black-reds with pearl eyes. Strains of other colors are identified by their hue, but odd colors meet with disapproval and suspicion. The highest reputed of Indian game, the Asil, is divided in a few strains only, all dark and identified merely by their color. Indian cockers do not allow chance to creep in. They have experience extending some 20 to 30 centuries and kill off every off-colored bird. The writer has observed that highly successful breeders stuck firmly to a given color scheme, dark ones being, at that time, in preference. My own experience being further, that failures occur more frequently with lighter colors. Evidence therefrom may be gathered that color stands for efficiency or absence of same, in purebreds!
White hair on most live beings stands for vanishing youth, and white color in game birds is an indication that the physiologic function of feather coloring, intimately related with sexual functions and expression, is absent. We are sure that gameness and staying power depends on sexual integrity, and therefore, white birds lack a condition without which, breeding for the pit, is greatly problematic. The danger of white color has been realized among Asil breeders, and specimens appearing now and then are killed off right away.
For steel fighting, where staying power and wind are not essential, especially if long weapons are used, the danger of white color is not always apparent, and, in fact, white birds have been reputed to possess deadly heels and high speed, but, at the expense of endurance and gameness, I have made a big jump from extreme to extreme. Between very dark and white, there is a scale of colors, most of which have been identified by a standard denomination, such as Reds, Greys, Pyles, Duns, Blacks, etc., but this does not mean that colors are absent. In fact, there are much more colors lacking standard denomination than those generally used and recognized by the standard.
Do not run away with the idea that a dark colored bird is guaranteed game, but uniform color, inside standard game qualities, at once impress you of having a homogeneous foundation upon which you reckon your chances. If you allow your flock to come all colors, you will soon realize that difference in type, combs, etc., will soon creep in, and you will probably have a lot of mongrels in no time, evidencing that your birds are not pure but crossbreds, and as such unreliable to a degree. Color in game birds is a measure of breeding science.
Fighting Style.
A Spanish cocking veteran, whom I asked, why they fought naked heel instead of steel, being as it is that the peninsular game birds are typical steel fighters, expressed his views that any length of steel assists the cock to kill his adversary easily, while fighting in natural spurs, the same cock has to put a considerable larger amount of strength, skill and gameness to obtain the same result. Further, that all that is necessary for steel fighting is a cock able to cross his legs well. Power being quite unnecessary, and even in the way, when it was there at the expense of speed, as is the case in most Orientals.
This should give food for thought and a fair idea what steel fighting style should be. But, even experienced cockers differ considerably in their opinion about the advantage of speed and wing work, the crab about steel being that the shorter the heel the nearer you come to naked spurs, and the longer it is the nearer you come to the slasher. How a slasher cock lacking wing, as they say in Peru, is a dead cock.
It is queer that in lands where cocks are fought in steel, you may find any length of gaffs from short regulation up to true pitchforks. The difference in length used not being other commodity but the adaptation of the weapon to the bird’s capability. No doubt that the longer the heel the greater the opportunity for a chance winner.
I take the words of a wise and experienced sportsman to close: “Full drop gaffs, one and a half inches, brings out the best sport.”
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