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How the Chinese train Fighting Turtles.

     [Wong Chin Foo in Chicago News.]

     Turtle fighting is very common in the east, and I am surprised the sport has not been introduced into this country. It’s quiet, nice, and very satisfactory. Two kinds of the reptiles are good for fighting-the mud turtle and the snapper. The latter is quicker and more ferocious. Young and old ones are no good. The best run from seven to twenty pounds in weight, and are from 5 years upward. After being caught they are regularly trained. We feed them raw meat, raw fish, and a strong drug whose name I don’t know. To make their jaws strong and their eyes quick, we tease them twice a day with wooden sticks and with rags tied up to look like another turtle’s head. Then we fix up their jaws and teeth. We file them and fix them until they are sharp as the blade of a knife.

     A few month’s training is all they want. They’ll snap a pencil at a bite, or crush and bite through a bamboo in a minute or two. A week before a fight they should be teased every two or three hours and given red pepper on their food. They get crazy mad and will attack their trainer at every chance. When they are fighting we throw red pepper on their wounds to make them more savage. You want to be very careful, though, in training and fighting them, because they’ll snap at you every time. If they get hold of you a piece comes out or a finger comes off, and sometimes their bites are poisonous and the trainer dies.

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