Another kind of Show Folk, but rougher and more brutal, were the people who looked after the bears and the dogs. Bull baiting, bear baiting, sometimes horse baiting, together with badger baiting, duck hunting, cock throwing, dog fighting and cock fighting, were the chosen and common sports of the people. Baiting of every kind there was wherever there were dogs and bulls and badgers, but the centre and headquarters of the sport was South London, in the place called Paris Gardens. The popularity of the sport is shown by the simple facts that there was not only bull and bear baiting in Paris Gardens, but also two rings or amphitheatres for bull and bear baiting outside the gardens behind Bankside, and that in the High Street itself, nearly opposite St. George's Church, there was permanently established the bull ring to which an animal could be tied whenever one was found fit for the purpose of affording an hour's sport by the madness of his rage or the agonies of his death.
The present Blackfriars Bridge Road cuts through the site of Paris Gardens, leaving a portion on either side. They extended to the distance of about a quarter of a mile south of the river: sluggish streams and ditches ran across and round the gardens, which were so thickly planted with trees as to be dark in the summer. Both in summer and winter the place was noisome with exhalations from the marshy soil. These gardens were the chief home of the rough and cruel sports already mentioned: here were kept under the King's bearward the King's dogs; the Mayor's dogs; and the bears whom they baited. It does not appear that bulls were also kept here: for baiting purposes it was generally a young bull that was chosen, and he was baited to death. The bears were not killed, they were all known to the people by name, such as Harry Hunks and Sackerson, and were valued in proportion to the sport they afforded. The dogs, who with the bears were fed upon the offal and refuse brought over every day from the Shambles of Newgate, were incredibly fierce and savage. In these days we hardly know what a savage dog is, even the bull dog has become peaceful: formerly, the best defender of the house was the dog who was unloosed at night: they fed him chiefly on meat: he was trained to fly at the throat of a stranger: he was a terror to wayfarers--remember the dog in the second part of the 'Pilgrim's Progress:' he was always biting and rending some one: he had the ferocity of the wolf redeemed only by affection for his master: we have no such dogs in these days. Accompanied by one or two such fierce mastiffs or bull dogs who feared no one but their master, a man might journey from end to end of the country armed with nothing but a club. Such a dog would fight and would overcome a man. Kept in the kennels, with insufficient exercise, with stimulating food, the creatures became fiercer than wolves and stronger than tigers. The bull they loved to bait: he had horns and hoofs to dodge: but the bear afforded the best sport both for man and dog: he presented a nose and ears and a thick fur on which to spring, and to fasten the canine teeth upon. What joy to hang on to those ears, torn and bleeding, the whole dog quivering with rapture even though in the end one stroke of the bear's hind paw dragged out the inside of the dog, with the heart and the breath of life!
