The Question: Is cockfighting cruel and sadistic? (Asked at the Nacional Hotel, Havana, Cuba.)

ANGELA WALKER
Port of Spain
Trinidad, B.W.I.
No. I adore cockfighting, blood and all. Furthermore, the more bloody a cockfight, the more exciting it gets. When you put two guineas down on one of the cocks you don't mind the blood. You get a run for your money because cockfighting is one sport that can't be fixed.

BILL FILER
New York
Business executive
My wife doesn't think so, but I do. She lived in Cuba for years, and she can hang on to a cockfight until both of the bantams dispatch each other with long, sharpened spurs. How can women be so bloodthirsty? When a cock is fighting with an eye hanging out you'd think they'd had it!

MRS. ALLAN M. HIRSH
Hot Springs, Va.
No. I'm 75, but I adore cockfighting. My husband and I used to raise bantams. We bred them for courage, but we'd dull their spurs so they couldn't gouge each other's eyes out. Americans are too soft. Too bad parents don't inject the same feeling of gameness when rearing their children.

CAP KRUG
Washington, D.C.
Former Secretary of the Interior
The fight itself is cruel but not sadistic. On the other hand, the sporting atmosphere really makes a cockfight one of the most enjoyable and exciting of sports. The tremendous competitive interest of two cocks locked in combat is something I've never seen in any other sport.

WILLIAM A. MORGAN
Washington, D.C.
Physician
I've seen hundreds of cockfights; have won and lost hundreds of dollars on them. The natives are so stimulated that I get into the same mood. Cockfighting was once the only sport. Now that there are other sports, some persons feel above the cockpit. I'm more or less a primitive.

VICE-ADMIRAL ROSS T. McINTIRE
Coronado, Calif.
Physician
Sadistic? No. Cruel? That's another question. Compared with bullfighting, it's not nearly as cruel, since the nervous system of a cock is not nearly as highly developed. I've never cared for cockfights, but those who like and bet on them consider these fights great spectacles.

W. C. (BILL) DENISON
Columbus, Ohio
President
Engineering company
No. I think cockfighting is a basic sport. If the cocks could talk they'd probably say prizefighting is cruel and sadistic. No one has to go to a cockfight. Some people enjoy it, others don't. Why should those who don't take the joy out of life for those who do?

JOAN BYRNE
Airline stewardess
Cockfighting isn't cruel and sadistic as far as the bantams are concerned. Like some humans who don't know any better, they love to fight. But it was cruel and sadistic for my escort to take me to a cockfight. That night I had a nightmare. Bantams clawed me and I woke up screaming.

TONY VAUGHN
Vice President and manager, Nacional Hotel
No. Cockfighting is a sport. People like it. If they didn't it couldn't survive. Some Americans think football is brutal. A few baseball fans say it's sadistic for a pitcher to throw at a man's head. Most of us don't agree. So why should we say that cockfighting is cruel?

TEN PHOTOS

NEXT WEEK:

How do you feel about the out-of-bounds penalty in golf?