Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

If the cities of the plain, which now lie buried under the fatal waters of the Dead Sea, had more wickedness and abominations in them than New York, then they must have been wicked indeed. Some phases of life in this center of Western enlightenment would disgrace the bloodiest barbarism. Dens there are in New York of howling fiends, where all manner of hideous deviltries run riot and make humanity weep that the species can sink to such degrading and bestial depths. The following account of scenes, which took place recently in one of the hells of New York, is from the Tribune:
“On Saturday evening one of the many barbarous baitings which are almost daily taking place, to the disgrace of New York, was enacted in a pandemonium kept by one McLaughlin at No. 155 First avenue. Three hundred beings, human only in shape, were crowded together in a close noisome cellar, only about twenty feet square, and a great part of that taken up by what is most fitly termed the ‘pit,’ to gloat over the agonies and dabble themselves in the blood of animals who cannot by any possibility be so brutal as themselves. The cruelties of Saturday evening were less savage than usual; no bets were pending; the animals were tortured merely for the amusement of the spectators; so we saw the barbarity in its wildest form. The program as published-and here we must be permitted to admire the watchfulness of the police-the program as advertised three days before hand, announced that ‘the sports of the evening would commence with bear-baiting, badger and coon-drawing, wolf-hunting and rat-killing. The bear baited by five dogs until he caught them in his paw and crunched, amid the yells and cheers of the assembled fancy. The badger, was attempted to be drawn by more than a dozen, some who were with great difficulty choked off having set their teeth deep into his throat.
“An amateur match was then made between two large dogs, who fought with such fury that in five minutes their panting could be heard above the shouts of their masters; and when they stopped for a moment in one place, they marked it with a pool of blood. The dogs sank several times quite exhausted but were reanimated by fanning and cheering until the fight had lasted twenty minutes; they were then quite helpless. The fiendish shouts of derision and applause with which the whole fight was filled, must be heard and felt to understood. Three more fights of the same character followed, one of them lasting nearly half an hour. When the last matched dogs had been carried out dripping with blood, a bag of rats was emptied in the pit, and men and dogs jumped in kicking up a general melee. When the rats were killed, and the slippery arena cleared away, a dog and a raccoon were pitted against each other. The raccoon dexterously caught the dog by the nose and held until the blood streamed. This was a particularly delicious morsel for the fancy, and was loudly appreciated. A number of equally sanguinary dog fights followed, and the exercises were closed early on Sunday morning by a raffle for a dog still bleeding from the fight. [N. Y. Tribune.