The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-12-22
WATERBURY ONCE LED THE STATE IN
 COCK FIGHTING SPORT

Cock fighting, once a popular sport In Waterbury, is now almost obsolete, although a little of it is still indulged in, but nothing at all like what it used to be half a century ago, when Waterbury was in the field a against the whole state, with Thomaston, Water town and Ansonia as its principal competitors As a rule Waterbury carried off the honors and the money, too, which in some instances made up neat pile, the large total being due more to the number in attend snce than because of many heavy pets. most of the sums risked not be- ing over a few dollars.
 The success that attended Water oury In. cooking mains was the re- 5ult Of a superior breed of fowl and sklllful work in training and putting on t.:e spurs, the latter said to be a Anack handed down from father to son and known only to a few fam lilies. and these owners of the fla nous white hackles. birds that never were known to run away, although now and then one of them did get Killed in the pit. The white hackle Is a stout bird with black breast, red beak like a pickaxe and can wield it With dead effect. It was nothing un- usual for a white hackle to cut the head off some of the crack birds from out Of town and leave the bodies sprawling in the dirt. On one occasion, a Waterbury man demanded an inz Vestigation when he saw the head hon o1f his chicken and the rest of it fall lie claimed that the white hackIe had razor tied under it's wing, but of course that was not so
 What they call handling" fighting cocks is quite a business. This in cludes getting the right angle on the spurs To do this one has to watch the movements of the birds in the SSralnlng bouts with the gloves" apart than others do Attention must De given to this in the handling so that when they are entered in a real contest they will not be handicapped by the artificial weapons, which are usually about an inch and quarter long, The gloves" so called are spurs made of rubber About the same size of the steel ones. By watch these the skillful handler knows just now to put on the steel spurs so that the bird will not trip on them.
 in the old days small amounts used cock lighting was confined to the com mon people, but now there are more mli1onaires at mains than working m en and amounts running into the thousands change hands as fast as roosters are killed or run away. No- body knows where the business start ed. no more than one can tell when 1t will end. There are more than nSnI1ng cocks, but it appears that the white hackles have no peers for courage, endurance and skill. If one wanted to get one of these today, 1t is said he would have to go to Long Island Tor 1t, and then he would have to plant down as high as a thousand dol lars before he would be put in pos- session of 8 six months old bird of that breed. Those who have a corner on the breed guarded them so we'll that 1t seems nobody else has any of them. although if you should say that to a few people in Waterbury, you would stand a good show of getting mob bed. These men claim they have the real stuff, but in the opinion of others they are only commercials, nothing more than common dung hills" that would run from a ''set- ting hen.
 Just before the world war broke out the owners of the Long Island White Tackles were over in France with about a hundred birds prepar- ing to take part in the biggest cock