The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-08-13


Notice how carefully they act. They
fence for positions like prize fighters,
sparring and parrying. Now they come
together, and the fight is on. Each picks
savagely at the other. Now one jumps
and spurs He fails to hit a vital part,
although he draws blood.
In the meantime our peaceable crowd
has gone mad. The weIl-dressed Porto
Ricans about us are jumping up and
down. They are waving their hands and
some of them are yelling out bets and
comments at the rate of 200 words to the
minute. One of the cocks is black and
the other is yellow. They are shouting
out so many pesos on the black, and so
many pesos on the yellow.
In the meantime the cocks are still
fighting. They are already covered with
blood. Red drops are oozing out or their
heads and necks. One has driven his
spur into the back Of the other and the
blood spurts There the yellow rooster
is running and the black follows him. 1t
is only a feint of the yellow. See. he
turns and drives his spur into the comb
of the black The black staggers, and
the yellow again spurs him. See, some
of the men have jumped over the railing
and are swapping their fingers at tho
cocks They are wilder than ever. The
noise is worse than bedlam gone mad.
stead of two poor brave little fowls peck
ing at and trying to kill each other.
A BATTLE TO THE DEATH.
The sight disgusts me, but I cannot
help admiring the courage Of the chick
ems They are game to the end. They
fight on and on. Now the black one Is
squirting The yellow cock is down, and
the black is on top. How the yellow IS
up.
The cocks fight on and on, sparring and
picking each other. I have timed them
with my watch and they have been fight
ing for fifteen minutes. A human prize
fighter would have died in such strug-
gle. AS it Is the cocks are almost spent.
The black is trembling so he can hardly
stand, but still he fights The yellow Is
staggering, but he picks away almost as
courageously as when he began.
Notice how he tries to keep on one side
of the black, and how the black cock
misses when he attempts to spur his en-
envy from the right. Sec! The black has
lost his right eye, the yellow cock knows
It. and for this reason he is fighting him
on his blind side. There, the plucky
black one has jumped up and spurred the
yellow He has driven his spur In under
the right wing. 1t seems to be q mortal
thrust, for the yellow falls. The crowd
goes crazy. Every man Is yelling. The
match is over.
No, it is not! The umpire calls time.
He turns a minute glass upside down
and the men will have the sixty seconds
while the sand is running through to
sponge off the birds for a second round.
See how they do it. Each picks UP his
tired and bloody chicken. He puts its
head in its mouth and sucks out the
blood. Next he fills his mouth with bran
dy and spurts it over the chicken, and
the hot spirit appears to revive it.
Now the time is up, and the cocks are
again in the ring The yellow tries to
hold his feet but he cannot. He falls TO
the ground and the black stands by him
and picks him. This goes on for several
minutes, when there is another call of
time and the sucking, brandying and
squirting is done once more.
The poor yellow dying fowl Is again
placed upon the floor. He makes one
struggle to rise and then lies down. He
cannot move, and the black cock picks
out his eyes, while the human brutes look
on and yell applause. He can struggle
no more; he is dead. and the black cock
has won. Frank G. Carpenter.