{"id":498,"date":"2012-03-08T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T14:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/potbanks.wordpress.com\/?p=498"},"modified":"2012-03-08T14:31:18","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T14:31:18","slug":"cock-measuring-machine-in-staffordshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2012\/03\/08\/cock-measuring-machine-in-staffordshire\/","title":{"rendered":"Cock measuring machine in Staffordshire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Plot&#8217;s <em>Natural History of Staffordshire<\/em>, written in 1686, makes mention of a machine then in use in this county for gauging the size of fighting-cocks. The writer designates this ingenious contrivance as &mdash;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;the nicest piece of art that ever I saw relating to the feathered kingdom, and, indeed, the &#8216;most curious was an instrument shown me by the Right Worshipful Sir Richard Astley, of Patshull, baronet, of his own invention to match game-cocks, discovering their size, both as to length and girth, to so great an accuracy that there cannot be easily the least mistake.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>[&#8230;] as a rule the lightest pair of cocks were fought first, then the next in weight, and so on till the heaviest pair were the last to be pitted.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; from <em>Old English Sports<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/oldimages\/cock.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"cock\" width=\"387\" height=\"461\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-499\" \/><br \/>\nIllustration: Bill Mayer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Plot&#8217;s Natural History of Staffordshire, written in 1686, makes mention of a machine then in use in this county for gauging the size of fighting-cocks. The writer designates this ingenious contrivance as &mdash; &#8220;the nicest piece of art that ever I saw relating to the feathered kingdom, and, indeed, the &#8216;most curious was an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}