six o'clock
* * * * * It was Monday afternoon of Bursley Wakes -- not our modern rectified festival , but the wild and naïve orgy of seventy years ago , the days of bear-baiting and of bull-baiting , from which latter phrase , they say , the town derives its name . In those times there was a town-bull , a sort of civic beast ; and a certain notorious character kept a bear in his pantry . The ` beating ' -LRB- baiting -RRB- occurred usually on Sunday mornings at six o'clock , with formidable hungry dogs ; and little boys used to look forward eagerly to the day when they would be old enough to be permitted to attend . On Sunday afternoons colliers and potters , gathered round the jawbone of a whale which then stood as a natural curiosity on the waste space near the corn-mill , would discuss the fray , and make bets for next Sunday , while the exhausted dogs licked their wounds , or died . During the Wakes week bull and bear were baited at frequent intervals , according to popular demand , for thousands of sportsmen from neighbouring villages seized the opportunity of the fair to witness the fine beatings for which Bursley was famous throughout the country of the Five Towns . In that week the Wakes took possession of the town , which yielded itself with savage abandonment to all the frenzies of license .