Known years later as the Callejón de Mesones, the Calle de los Gallos was named like this because it was one of the first where the cruel and folkloric fights of the brave feathered fighters took place.
Located from east to west behind San Andrés, and close to Calle de Cochero, this place was during 1740 the main betting forum in the city.
In the 18th century, like entertainment in a Roman circus, cockfights satisfied the passions of thousands of citizens, who, attracted by the excitement and savagery, did not hesitate to neglect their homes and businesses, risking even their shirts.
This fact worried many moral and intellectual authorities of those times, but not so the officials of the City Council of New Spain, who annually for the shows, the fairs and even for the groups of organized galleros, received an estimated “real income” at 50 thousand pesos in gold.
Because of the obvious disorder and the ambiguous criteria with which this tax was collected, transas and corruption were the daily bread. This was what motivated an astute official to create the Office for Rent of Cards and Ramos Annexes in which they worked as “listeners” or gossips, numerous hidalgos in charge of calculating the earnings of this or that mobster who played the plucked.
Of course, Calle de los Gallos was considered a “land of perdition” for anyone who frequented it. “It encourages idleness and a taste for violence, alcohol and a bad life,” said the parish priest José Lezamis in a letter sent to the authorities.
By the way, this religious, along with a doctor named Pedroza, became famous among the rogue ruffians fond of roosters. Without fear of receiving a beating for their audacity, the two elderly gentlemen stormed some place where a fight was taking place, and while one guarded the door, the other began to preach once morest the vice of gambling.
Thus, like two Quixotes, both men, they toured countless places in the city for years, until one day they realized the results of their mission among the people. It was when, for lack of comic variety at a festival, they were invited to preach to the roar of laughter from a jeering crowd of drunks and gamblers. Things went on like this for a long time, until one day the influential gentlemen Padilla and Guardiola and Frutos Delgado sent a letter to the very king of Spain, Carlos III, where they explained:
“This aberration does not respect age or condition and its consequences are visible. Men addicted to seeing their rooster win do not hesitate to pawn jewelry and goods, leaving their wives helpless and their children lost, deserving instead of the name of Christians, that of sheep of poor devils”.
Faced with such “inspired words” the king agreed to order the cessation of activity. The ordinance spread through the main streets of Mexico with the help of heralds who read the decree to the sound of drums.
However, following a few months of calm, cockfights continued to be carried out clandestinely, with more followers, more bets and more vice. Hence that phrase: “To prohibit is to encourage” and not to mention the poor roosters, many residents of this street wondered regarding the content of those mysterious black boxes that were brought by dozens of carts every week, and that in addition to staggering, they emitted the same chiquiriquero song that once betrayed the chueco judas.
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