the matt and feather

[George Thompson]

Here is an unrecorded (I think) circumlocution for cock-fighting.

Several meetings of the gentlemen of the matt and feather, have lately
been held in this city, which produced much sport in the gallant
pastime of cock-fighting. . . .  Independent Journal, January 31,
1784, p. 2, col. 2

I would have thoght that cock-fighting would take place or the ground,
on on sand.  The story doesn't indicate whether the fights were held
indoors or not.  In the 1820s, there were cock-fights in NYC held
indoors, but the city had grown greatly in the intervening 40 years.

The OED, "mat", noun #1, sense II5d has "A piece of resilient, usually
padded material on which wrestling bouts, gymnastic displays, etc.,
are performed,"  from 1903, seems not to have anything alluding to
cock-fighting.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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