After prevailing at Carlisle for four or five centuries

After prevailing at Carlisle for four or five centuries

After prevailing at Carlisle for four or five centuries

After prevailing at Carlisle for four or five centuries, and continuing as time rolled on without any abatement to the end, both vicious and brutal, bull baiting was finally suppressed within the limits of the ancient border city, about the end of the eighteenth century.

The last public bull baitings at Carlisle took place in the cattle market on the "Sands"then outside the city boundariesin the months of August and September, 1824. Long before the time fixed to commence the proceedings on the first occasion, thousands of personsmany of them femaleswere assembled. The adjoining bridge was thronged, houses were covered, and every eminence densely packed with eager expectant human beings. All the scum and blackguardism of the old border city had quitted it. No such outpouring could be remembered to have taken place, except when the noted professors of pugilism, Carter and Oliver, contended at Gretna. The bull to be baited was of the black Galloway breed, and had been purchased under peculiar circumstances, by a few disreputable characters. In contending against its canine assailants, it laboured under the great disadvantage of being without horns.