Cape Breton's Magazine

Cockfighting: an Introduction from Conversations with Jim Wilson with (most) Illustrations from Photos in the Khattar Collection at the University College of Cape Breton It's really a going concern today. But it's *'''''''''''* ' ' very, very hush-hush. Very hush-hush. But, you know, I've been involved with them since I was 7 or 8. My father was dead against them, but my uncle liked them, and I was always out there all the time. But you know, really, they were a good brand of people that were rooster fight? ers, and they still are. Mostly they were all good, steady working men, and good re? liable people. Where it got its bad name, you know.... Rooster fighting, when I was a kid, it was real big. There'd be 200 or 300 at rooster fighting on Sunday morning. But there's always a certain amount of drunks in a town like that. And some guy would go out and get drunk, and he wouldn't come home Saturday and Sunday. He'd show up at the rooster fight with $2 left in his pocket, trying to make some money to take home. He'd lose his $2, and then he'd go home and tell his wife he lost his money at the rooster fights. Well then they'd run to the priest or the minister and raise hell, close them off all the way with the roost? er fight. But, it wasn't true. But it got a bad name, you know. But the men that actually fought roosters --they were all good steady workers and reliable family men, you know. I just sold out a year ago. I used to bring mine in from the States. They were paying $500 for one rooster. (I'm interested in what that sport meant to you, what that sport meant to those men who were bothering to raise those roosters .) LiBKltTY rilOFEllTY Old editorial cartoon reprinted In Emergency Librarian. 1977 Yeah. Funny--it means different things to different people. The last time I got in? volved in it--I was out of it for about 20 years. And the last time I got involved in it, there were other fellows wanted me to get them into it. They'd heard about it, but they didn't know anything, they didn't know anybody was in it. So I took them around. I took them to different places, and showed them the birds, and let them see them fight, (and they wanted to be) partners. (But) I loved raising game birds, and I liked them, and I loved breeding them. But I don't like fighting them. I like if I win them all. But I don't like losing a bird. I don't know why. And I can't com? plain, because the last bunch I fought, I won 16 out of 18 fights. So I had the best roosters east of Montreal. All my birds Lcome from Missouri and California. And I Ihand fed them and picked them myself--went "down and got them. But I didn't like los? ing a bird. But there's something about the sport that gets in your blood. It's like horse racing or playing cards. You know, a lot of kids--they grew up on that. And it is quite a game. And there are peo? ple that really like it. Nine times out of ten, (a bird that los? es,) he's dead. Or he's so close to dead-