BULL BAITING.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 192, 21 May 1878, Page 2

BULL BAITING.

To* the Editor of the Akaroa Mail.

'; practice of baiting orexciting : bulls with dogs for amusement—such is the.,definition of a bull bait; but such 'amusements, are no longer allowed,, being considered cruel and unmanly. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that the law which can abrogate this pastime can also eradicate the vicious propensity to torture inherent more or less in all of us. Bull baiting is no longer on the catalogue of English sports, but we develop the taste by fixing on human bulls, whom, strange" to say, the law does hot protect. To exemplify more plainly what I mean, I would refer your readers to the proceedings that have now for some time been enacted in the Borough Council. They have assumed precisely the same character as of old, when poor, helpless, and torndown bulls were the victims, the only difference being that we substitute for the bull a real live human being termed a Mayor. I am credibly informed : by 1 an eye witness that the proceedings at these baits are characterised' by the absence of all English ■ notions of justice and fair play. -The bull, once down, is most effectually torn and crushed. Every description of "dog, from the yelping .cur to the low bred mongrel, have a snap'at him, and I am' further told that by tbe time they have done with him, the poor bull rises—a most pitiable panting, object more resembling Reynard at the death than anything else the imagination can picture. And this to happen in a civilised community! In a corner of the world where we boast of our freedom, our education, our intelligence, and our mate love of fair play, and where we hold the Englishmen to be the pink of all that is good and noble! But stay, perhaps we may yet find that the arena where these exhibitions take

JBggP-M_-_-MM*iii^^ place contains but a very small number from the country that gave Englishmen birth.; In conclusion, Sir, it is time the inhabitants of Akaroa came forward, and in a most unmistakable manner condemned these wretched proceedings. The burgesses, as a body, should protect the Mayor from the outrageous and vulgar insults heaped on him at these meetings. It has very often been asked what has he done that he should be treated like a beast? No one appears to know what his offence is. A want of confidence motion—Heaven help us! Where is this wretched farce to end ? My advice to these geniuses is to reverse it, and unanimously carry a motion that they have had too much confidence in themselves; that they have all along been the victims of an overweening amount of self-conceit; that they are not heaven-born politicians; that they have very much misbehaved in their conduct to his Worship ; and, in short, that they have committed an egregious blunder. Let this motion be put, and for once they will carry the public heartily with them. Let them take' as their motto—"The cobbler to his last," and let us hope that it may be the" last we shall hear of the cobbler. Yours, &c, JOHN BULL.