Knuckles and Gloves

CHAPTER II
TOM JOHNSON AND ISAAC PERRINS

It is character and knowledge of character, which, together with strength and skill, makes boxing champions to-day. And we are inclined to think that the psychological element in fighting came in only within the day of gloves, and rather late in that day. Certainly the old records of the early Prize-Ring are of brawn and stamina, skill and courage rather than of forethought and acutely reasoned generalship, but there are exceptions, and one of the most noteworthy is that of Tom Johnson.

Johnson (whose real name was Jackling) was a Derby man, who came to London as a lad, and worked as a corn porter at Old Swan Stairs. For a heavyweight champion he was very small—short, rather: for he stood but 5 feet 9 inches. He must, however, have been made like a barrel, for he weighed 14 stone, and the girth of his chest was enormous. A story is told of how Johnson when his mate fell sick carried two sacks of corn at each journey up the steep ascent from the riverside and paid the man his money, so that the boxer’s amazing strength earned the double wage.

The best known and probably the fiercest of Johnson’s battles was with Isaac Perrins, who stood 6 feet 2 inches and weighed 17 stone. It is not probable that boxers trained very vigorously in those early days, so that the weights may be misleading. Contemporary prints, however, certainly give the impression of men in hard condition. Perrins, a Birmingham man, is said to have lifted 8 cwt. of iron into a wagon without effort.

The fight took place at Banbury in Oxfordshire on October 22, 1789. The men fought (it is interesting to know when we think of the prizes of the present day) for 250 guineas. Two-thirds of the door money went to the winner, one-third to the loser. The men fought on a turfed stage raised five feet above the ground.

Johnson’s method had always been to play a waiting game, to try to understand his opponent’s temperament, to take no avoidable risks. He knew that he was a good stayer, so he was accustomed to use his feet and to keep out of distance until he had sized up his man. He would always make rather a long but certain job of a fight than a quick but hazardous one.

Johnson’s greatest trouble was his passionate temper, which was largely the cause of his downfall two years later in his fight with Big Ben Brain. Isaac Perrins, who had the name of a good-natured giant, was the first to lead. He ... “made a blow,” Pierce Egan tells us, “which, in all probability, had he not have missed his aim, must have decided the contest, and Johnson been killed, from its dreadful force.” But Johnson dodged the blow and countered with a terrific right-hander which knocked Perrins down. At that time prize-fighters stood square to each other with their hands level, ready to lead off with either. And in that position a man naturally fell over much easier than from the solid attitude of a few years later till the present time.

The next three rounds were Johnson’s, for Perrins was shaken by his first fall. Then Perrins gathered himself together, and by sheer weight forced himself, regardless of the blows that rained on him, through the smaller man’s guard and knocked him down. And for several rounds in his turn Perrins was the better. He cut Johnson’s lip very badly, so that he lost blood, and the betting for some time remained in his favour.

Tom Johnson by this time had the measure of his man. The usual waiting game would not serve now. He must not only wait, but he must keep away, and in order to keep away, he must run away. This may not have been wholly admirable from a purely sporting point of view, but we must forgive Johnson a good deal (and as we shall see there really was a good deal to forgive) on account of his inches. “He had recourse,” says Egan, “to shifting”—that is, he kept out of the way for as long as possible, and then, as by the rules of the Prize-Ring a round only ended when one of the men went down, probably closed and let Perrins throw him.

But the spectators approved of this method no better than they would to-day, and there was a good deal of murmuring against Johnson. At last Perrins, unable to reach his nimble-footed antagonist, began to mock at him. “Why!” he exclaimed to the company at large, “what have you brought me here? This is not the valiant Johnson, the Champion of England: you have imposed upon me with a mere boy!”

At this Johnson was stung to retort, for he was no coward and was but fighting in the only way which his size allowed. Moreover, Perrins’s observation roused his dander, and he blurted out, “By God, you shall know that Tom Johnson is here!” and immediately flew at his man in a passion of rage and planted a terrific blow over his left eye, so that it closed almost at once.

This incident nearly decides for us that Perrins was not much of a boxer. A wild charge of that sort, particularly by a much smaller man, is seldom difficult to frustrate. And the opinion of the crowd began to veer round. Those who had put their money on Perrins began to hedge.

Undaunted by his closed eye, Perrins pulled himself together in the next round and returned as good as he had got, closing Johnson’s right eye. And so for a while the fight remained level. Many rounds and very short ones. A half-minute’s rest between. Much hard punishment given and got, but a great deal of it not of a kind obvious to the inexpert spectator. Quite apart from short-arm body-blows which are sometimes apt to elude observation, there was wrestling for a fall with which far more rounds ended than with falls from a blow. The effort to throw is exhausting enough, but to be thrown and for a heavy man to fall on top of you is terribly wearing. And though the strength of these two men was prodigious, yet Johnson was the closer knit of the two, from a boxer’s point of view the better made.

Now when they had fought forty rounds, Johnson was confident and happy, but he knew that he was pitted against a lion-hearted man who was by no means yet worn out. Suddenly he got an opening for a clean straight blow with all his weight behind it. This was a right-hander, which struck Perrins on the bridge of his nose and slit it down as though it had been cut with a knife.

The odds were now 100-10 on Johnson, but he had by no means won the fight. Perrins was boxing desperately, striving with his great superiority in reach to close Johnson’s remaining eye. He knew very well that many a fight had been won like that, an otherwise unhurt man being forced to throw up the sponge because he was totally blinded by the swelling of his eyes. In the forty-first round Johnson either slipped down or deliberately fell without a blow and Perrins and his backers claimed the victory. If Johnson did actually play this very dirty trick to gain time and have a rest, he deserved to lose. We don’t know what actually happened. The records merely state that he fell without being hit. But the umpires allowed it because that contingency had not been covered in the articles of agreement made before the fight.

Perrins now changed his method, attacking his man with chopping blows presumably on the back of the neck and head, and back-handed blows which are seldom efficacious. These puzzled Johnson at first, and he took some of them without a return until he learned the knack and guarded himself. And Perrins’s strength now began to go: while Johnson, who for a few rounds had seemed tired, began to improve again. But yet he never began the attack. He left that always to the giant. In fact, Johnson did everything to save himself and to make his man do most of the work. Then Perrins, who had lunged forward with a terrific blow, fell forward, partly from his own impetus, and partly from weakness. Johnson, who had stepped aside from the blow, watched him and as he fell hit him in the face with all his might, at the same time tumbling over him. After that Perrins was done. Every round ended by his falling either from a blow or from sheer weakness. Johnson hit him as he pleased, with the consequence that Perrins’s face was fearfully damaged, “with scarce the traces left of a human being.” But he refused to give in, and round after round his seconds brought him to the scratch, when he swayed and staggered and struggled for breath and tried to fight on. His pluck in this battle was the inspiration of the Prize-Ring for ever afterwards. More than once Johnson, still strong, sent in tremendous blows which would utterly have finished lesser men, but Isaac Perrins held on until his friends and seconds gave in and refused to let the good fellow fight any more. The match had lasted for an hour and a quarter, during which sixty-two rounds had been fought.

In many ways it was an unsatisfactory fight, but for cunning (if rather low cunning) on one side and magnificent courage and determination on the other, it must be counted one of the greatest combats of the old days.

CHAPTER III
RICHARD HUMPHRIES, DANIEL MENDOZA, AND JOHN JACKSON

The Jews in this country have taken very kindly to boxing, both as spectators and as principals, throughout the annals of the Ring, both in the days of bare knuckles and in later times down to the present day, there has generally been a sprinkling of good fighting Israelites. And the first Jew of any note as a boxer became Champion of England.

The battles for which Daniel Mendoza was most famous were the succession, four in number, in which he engaged Richard Humphries. The first of these was negligible, being but a “turn-up” or pot-house quarrel at the Cock, Epping. This took place in September of 1787, but it led to a pitched fight between these men for a purse of 150 guineas at Odiham, in Hampshire, in the following January.

Like many prominent fighters, Mendoza was finely developed from the waist upwards, with a big chest and a show of muscle in the arms, but his legs were weaker. He was five-foot seven in height. Humphries was an inch taller and rather better built. He was known as the “Gentleman Boxer” because of his pleasant manners and sporting behaviour generally. Both were men of proved courage. As may be imagined from the Epping incident, there was no love lost between them.

They fought on a twenty-four foot stage erected in a field, but, since the day was wet, the boarded ring from the first proved to be a hindrance to good boxing.

At first the men were both very cautious. Mendoza, always a little inclined to attitudinise and to pose for effect, swaggered about the ring until he saw an opening when, lunging forward with a mighty blow he slipped and fell. On coming up again Mendoza got a little nearer to his man and hit him twice, the second blow knocking Humphries down. In the next round they closed and Humphries was heavily thrown. Already it seemed certain that Mendoza was the better boxer, though Humphries was very strong and full of pluck. And for a quarter of an hour of hard fighting his pluck was fully needed. Mendoza throughout that time attacked him with the utmost violence, knocking him down or throwing him with consummate skill, so that the betting was strongly in the Jew’s favour. Then happened one of those curious and unsatisfactory incidents for which Broughton’s Rules, at all events, had no remedy. Mendoza had driven his antagonist, blow following blow, right after left, across the ring to the side, which appears on this occasion to have been railed and not roped. A smashing right had all but lifted Humphries off the stage, and for a moment he hung over the rail quite helpless and at Mendoza’s mercy. Instantly taking advantage of his position, the Jew sent in a terrific right-hander at Humphries’s ribs which, had it landed, would almost certainly have knocked him out of time and so finished the fight. But Tom Johnson, who was acting as Humphries’s second, leapt forward and caught Mendoza’s fist in his own hand.

The Jew’s followers immediately sent up a shout of “Foul!” which was reasonable enough. Indeed, by modern rules there would be no question at all. Humphries would have been immediately disqualified for his second’s interference. But the old rules were elastic and the umpires on this occasion decided that Johnson was justified, as his man should be considered “down.” Whether they had any ulterior motive, such as the desire to see the fight run its natural length, one cannot say. But we do know that human nature has altered remarkably little in a hundred and fifty years, and to-day a referee, not of the first rank, will often stretch a debatable point in order “not to spoil sport,” or because it would be a pity if the public failed to get their money’s worth out of the moving pictures taken of the fight.

Hitherto, owing to the wet and slippery boards, Humphries had been severely handicapped. He now took off his shoes and fought in his silk stockings. But with these, too, he found it difficult to keep his footing and after a round or two his seconds provided him with a pair of thick worsted stockings to put over them. In these he could stand firm, and shortly afterwards his great courage began to be rewarded, for Mendoza flagged a little, and Humphries picked him clean off his feet and threw him with terrible force to the ground. The Jew came down on his face, cutting his forehead severely and bruising his nose. Coming up for the next round, Mendoza was plainly hurt and shaken, and thenceforward his antagonist showed himself the better man. Mendoza went down before a terrific body-blow, while in the next round he fell from a left-hander on the neck which nearly knocked the senses out of him. Then, coming up again, he dashed at Humphries and hit him with all his flagging power in the face, but he slipped and toppled over from the impetus of his own rush and fell down on the boards with his leg awkwardly twisted under him. In doing this he sprained a tendon, and knowing that further effort was quite useless, he gave in. A moment later he fainted in the ring and was carried away. So Humphries’s victory on this occasion was due, finally, to an accident. The whole battle was finished in half an hour, and “never was more skill and science displayed in any boxing match in this kingdom,” wrote the chronicler, Pierce Egan, with his customary exaggeration.

Prone as human nature ever is, now as then, to judge by net results, Mendoza’s reputation nevertheless suffered little from this defeat. On the contrary, he had boxed so well and had shown so much courage that he had, if anything, enhanced it. It was seen that he was a much quicker man than Humphries and that he was far better at close quarters. On the other hand, Mendoza was not a really hard hitter.

After this battle the winner wrote a note to his backer and patron, Mr. Bradyl, which delightfully summed up the situation:—

“Sir,—I have done the Jew, and am in good health.

“Richard Humphries.”

But a number of sportsmen were by no means satisfied that Humphries had “done” the Jew on his own merits. They fully realised that accident had materially helped in that “doing,” and accordingly were ready to back the Jew again. The two men being quite willing, a match was arranged and was eventually fought in Mr. Thornton’s park, near Stilton, in Huntingdonshire, on May 6th, 1789. For this encounter, popular excitement being very great, a sort of amphitheatre was built with seats piled tier on tier around the ring. It held nearly 3000 people. This, too, was an unsatisfactory fight, but has to be chronicled because it illustrates very vividly some of the causes which nearly a hundred years later finally brought the Prize-Ring to ignominy, and because, also, it shows how mixed are human motives and emotions during severe physical strain.

The men squared up to each other, and Humphries made the first attack, but Mendoza stopped the blow neatly and sent in a hard counter which knocked his antagonist down. The second and third rounds ended in exactly the same way. The Jew’s confidence was complete, his speed remarkable. He had learned to hit no harder, but he certainly hit more often than Humphries. For about forty minutes Mendoza had much the best of it, taking his adversary’s blows on his forearm, instantly replying with his quick, straight left, or closing and throwing Humphries.

The feeling of impotency, of long effort continuously baffled, finds the breaking point of a boxer’s pluck much sooner than severe punishment relieved by a successful counter from time to time. Humphries was tired, but not seriously hurt. In the twenty-second round Mendoza struck at him, but he avoided the blow and dropped. He did not slip. As the Jew’s fist came towards him he made the almost automatic movement which should ensure its harmlessness, but at the same moment he deliberately made up his mind to take the half minute’s rest then and there. Or perhaps that was instinctive too. The human mind flits quickly through the processes or stages of intention and comes to a certain conclusion. Humphries wanted to gain time and fell without a blow. Now the articles of agreement expressly stated that if either man fell without a blow he should lose the fight. And the cries of “Foul!” from the crowd and especially from Mendoza’s corner were natural enough. But Humphries and his backers claimed the fall a fair one because Mendoza had struck a blow, though it had not, as a matter of fact, landed. The partisans on either side wrangled and argued, and finally a general fight seemed almost inevitable. Above the yelling and cursing of the crowd and in the general confusion, the umpires could scarcely be heard. Sir Thomas Apreece, Mendoza’s umpire, naturally shouted that it was a foul and that Humphries was beaten. Mr. Combe, the other umpire, held his tongue, refusing to give an opinion. That should have been sufficient. But Mendoza’s second lost his temper and shouted across the ring to Tom Johnson, who was once again seconding Humphries, that he was a liar and a scoundrel. This observation may not have been strictly to the point, but the point (save that of the jaw) is the last consideration when feeling runs high on notable public occasions. Johnson said nothing and began to cross the ring in his slow, heavy way, looking very dangerous. But a diversion interrupted a promising bye-battle, for Humphries stood up and called on Mendoza to continue fighting, carrying the war, as it were, into the enemy’s country by taunting him with cowardice. Mendoza was willing enough, but his backers held him back. Humphries then threw up his hat and challenged the Jew to a fresh battle, and at last they fell to again. And yet again Mendoza showed himself the better man, knocking Humphries down twice in succession. For half an hour the second act of this drama continued indecisive, though Mendoza was evidently the better and more skilful man. He now punished Humphries severely, closing one of his eyes, severely cutting his forehead and lip. He had little in return, though Humphries had put in some heavy body-blows at close quarters which had made the Jew wince. But throughout the second half of the fight Humphries fought with perfect courage and even confidence. Then at last he again fell without a blow, and Mendoza was declared the winner.

What was to be thought of such a man?

Even now, neither Humphries nor his friends were fully satisfied. His tremendous hitting power, especially when directed against Mendoza’s body, was reckoned as not having yet been fully tested. Once let him send home but one smashing right on the Jew’s lower ribs, and he would certainly win.

Accordingly, yet another match was arranged in September of the following year at Doncaster, during (as Pierce Egan phonetically spells it) the Sellinger Cup week. The place chosen was confined on three sides by houses, whilst the fourth was closed by high railings behind which flowed the river Don. Public excitement was very high. Upwards of five hundred tickets of admission to the ground were sold at half a guinea each, whilst a ferryman made a small fortune by taking many hundreds of people over the river to the back of the railings at sixpence a head. These presently smashed down the railings and so gained an unauthorised entry. Having gained their point, however, the crowd behaved well, and settled down to watch the renewed trial of the two fighters in silent expectation.

Again a twenty-four-foot stage had been built at a height of four feet so that all the spectators could get a clear view. At half-past ten in the morning the men appeared, Mendoza immediately following Humphries. Both of them seemed cheerful, confident, and well. Johnson, who had hitherto been Humphries’s second, had deserted and gone over to the opposite camp, his place being taken by John Jackson, who, a few years later, himself became Champion of England. Colonel Hamilton and Sir Thomas Apreece were the umpires, and they mutually agreed upon Mr. Harvey Aston as referee. Odds of 5 to 4 were laid on Mendoza.

Humphries led off with perfect confidence and all his strength, but was met by stout resistance. In a moment they were in each other’s arms, struggling for a fall, and presently they both went over together. Their eagerness was quite undiminished when they came up again, Humphries doing most of the leading and landing from time to time, without, however, giving Mendoza serious trouble. After a time they grew more cautious, blows were fewer but harder, and Mendoza knocked his man down. In the fifth round Humphries made a desperate effort to get in one of his rib-bending body-blows, but failed, and in the rally that followed over-reached himself and fell. And then it was seen that, round by round, Mendoza was improving, scoring more heavily, boxing much better. The odds rose to 10-1 in his favour. Round after round ended by Humphries going down, sometimes from a blow, but more often “from a policy often used in boxing, which perhaps may be considered fair; several times he sank without a blow, which conduct, though contrary to the articles of agreement, was passed unnoticed.”

Judging that conduct on its open merits, we should say that Humphries was a simple coward. But we often too easily and too quickly call people cowards, and even in this instance we have, so to speak, to look again.

The spectators, even in that age of quickly cut and dried opinions, still had a certain degree of confidence in this strange man, for whilst he was actually fighting, though round by round he got the worst of it, there was the same old vigour in his movements, the same readiness to seize an opportunity. The man of poor spirit in the ring is not so much one who cannot stand punishment as one who fails in aggression. Almost he hopes to be knocked out; he can stand up and defend himself, but on his very life he cannot force himself to take chances and attack his opponent.

Again he must have experienced the impotency of inaction. He tried to hit Mendoza, but seldom succeeded. Again, one eye was completely closed so that he could not see from it. His friends, seeing that he had no chance of winning now, begged him to give in. But he refused. And yet he kept falling without a blow. One moment he would make up his mind to be brave, to endure whatever punishment was coming to him, and the next he would fail, and seek respite on the ground. Then again he would stand up and try to fight. For a little while after his friends’ solicitations, he was spurred on to his best endeavours, but it was useless. Mendoza won every round, and at last, dreadfully cut about the head and face, with a mutilated ear and a severe cut over the ribs, Humphries had to give in.

Much battered, he was carried through the crowd on the shoulders of his friends.

It was not until five years later that Mendoza’s championship was wrested from him by John Jackson, a man whose title to fame arose rather from his general behaviour than from his performances as a professional athlete.

Jackson was born in 1768, and was the son of a builder. His forebears had come of a good yeoman race. He was a man of great solidity of character, astute commercial instincts and a sonorous pomposity of manner which passed very well for dignity. He was five-feet eleven in height, and he weighed fourteen stone. He was massively built, and he “took care of himself,” as the saying goes: in other words, he lived a reasonable life—the last sort of life usually lived by the pugilists of that day.

Jackson and Mendoza met at Hornchurch, in Essex, on April 15th, 1795, for 200 guineas aside. The twenty-four-foot stage was built at the bottom of a hollow which formed a natural amphitheatre and accommodated about 3000 people.

Jackson had fought only twice before, having beaten Fewterel of Birmingham, a good man with twenty victories to his credit, and having lost, through falling and dislocating an ankle, to George Ingleston. His fine appearance and his portentous respectability no doubt brought more public interest to his fight with Mendoza than his record: but the Jew was a fully tried man of a great and deserved reputation, and the betting was 5-4 on him.

When the men had shaken hands a whole minute went by as they manœuvred about each other before a blow was struck. Then in the slow manner of that day, Jackson gathered himself together and sent in a tremendously hard left-hander which struck Mendoza full in the face and sent him down.

In the second round the Jew was more careful, and when Jackson went for him he stopped or avoided blow after blow, using his feet with neatness and dexterity, and returning, if not blow for blow, at least a fair proportion of them. A little later there was a fierce rally in which Mendoza was knocked down, but the betting nevertheless rose to 2-1 on him.

They fought at an ever increasing speed as time went on. In the fourth round, Jackson paid no heed at all to his opponent’s blows, but battered his way in, taking much punishment to give the greater. Finally he sent home a terrible left on the right eye which completely slit open the brow and bled profusely besides causing Mendoza to fall. Jackson was evidently doing the better as the betting changed in his favour.

It was in the next, the fifth round, that our model of gentlemanly conduct sought his own advantage by means of one of the foulest tricks that have been handed down to us. There was a fierce exchange of blows during which the Jew’s head was lowered as he lunged forward with his right to the body. Jackson stepped aside to avoid the blow and caught Mendoza by his somewhat long hair, twisting his fingers in it, whilst with his free hand he upper-cut him again and again.

Mendoza’s friends instantly appealed to the umpires, but, Egan tells us, “they deemed it perfectly consistent with the rules of fighting.” Mendoza fell and 2-1 was betted on Jackson.

During the next three rounds the old champion was evidently growing weak, and fought only on the defensive. But Jackson beat down his guard and hit him severely. The ninth round was the last. Jackson walked in and planted several hard blows in quick succession on face and body. Mendoza struggled on for a little while and at last fell utterly exhausted. He knew that he stood no chance now. It was folly to go on. He gave in.

It was one of the shortest main battles ever fought, lasting in all but ten minutes and a half; and for its time quite the hardest ever fought at all. Mendoza was badly cut up; the new champion was hardly hurt.

This was not by any means the Jew’s last appearance in the Prize-Ring, for he fought Harry Lee for seventy minutes and beat him in fifty-three rounds eleven years later: and he actually fought Tom Owen in 1820, when he was fifty-seven years old. “Youth will be served,” we know, and Owen, who was at the time only just over fifty, beat him. Mendoza lived to a good old age, and in comfortable circumstances, dying in 1836.

Seven years after the encounter recorded above a letter appeared in the Daily Oracle and Advertiser which purported to be a challenge from Mendoza to Jackson for a return match. As a fact, the letter was a practical joke; but a part of Jackson’s reply is worth quoting, as it is so characteristic of all we hear of the man.

“... for some years,” he wrote, “I have entirely withdrawn from a public life, and am more and more convinced of the propriety of my conduct by the happiness which I enjoy in private among many friends of great respectability, with whom it is my pride to be received on terms of familiarity and friendship....”

Jackson never fought again, and one of the greatest reputations in the annals of the championship that have come to us is based upon a pugilist who only entered the ring thrice! One other champion was in precisely the same case, and that was John Gulley, whom we shall come to in due course.

No doubt Jackson attracted to himself a good deal of attention apart from the eccentricity of his good behaviour. He was a man of prodigious strength and is said to have written his name whilst an 84 lb. weight was suspended from his little finger.

After his retirement he took rooms at 13 Old Bond Street, a regular and fashionable house of call for the young bloods of the day. It became the correct thing to take a course of boxing lessons from John Jackson. Byron, who was a keen boxer despite his infirmity, used to go there to keep down the fat of which he ever lived in terror. In his diary for March 17th, 1814, he says: “I have been sparring with Jackson for exercise this morning, and mean to continue and renew my acquaintance with my mufflers. My chest, and arms, and wind are in very good plight, and I am not in flesh. I used to be a hard hitter and my arms are very long for my height.”—which was 5 ft 8¼ inches—“At any rate, exercise is good, and this the severest of all; fencing and broadsword never fatigued me half so much.”

Byron regarded John Jackson as a friend whom he greatly admired. He wrote letters to him on several occasions.

Jackson had innumerable pupils and was about the first real instructor of boxing for amateurs. He went to his grave in Brompton Cemetery old and honoured in 1845.

CHAPTER IV
JEM BELCHER

If the love of Fair Play is not born in us, and has therefore to be taught, we do have ingrained in us a very real admiration for a good loser. Nothing, as we know only too well, succeeds like success—particularly material success. But somewhere or other deep down in us we have a kind of mistrust of what the world at large calls success: there may be a tinge of superstition in our feeling. At any rate we have a very warm corner in our hearts for the glorious failure: and not without good reason, for there are more failures than successes, and, having failed, it is easy enough to invent the glory.

Jem Belcher is probably the most renowned prize-fighter that ever lived. He won several splendid victories, details of some of which have come down to us. But it is not his victories that have given fame to him so much as his glorious defeats: and these not so much on account of the champions who beat him, though they were very famous too, as on account of Belcher’s personality. This, compounded as it was of qualities and especially defects, unlovely in themselves, was of exactly the kind which endears itself to the English speaking world, and to that world not only.

Jem Belcher was a roysterer, a drinker, a loose fish. He was also jealous and vindictive. But he was indomitably courageous and he was good-looking. He was a gracefully built man, and well-proportioned, but he made no great show of muscle. He stood 5 ft. 11 in., but never weighed more than 11 stone 10 lb.—only a little over the modern middle-weight limit.

Jem Belcher was born at Bristol on April 15th, 1781, being on his mother’s side a grandson of Jack Slack, the champion of 1750. He went to work as a butcher’s boy, and whilst quite a lad, showed amazing precocity as a boxer. His first recorded fight, when he was but seventeen, was with Britton, whom he beat in March of 1798 in half an hour or so. Then he came to London, where he was kindly treated by Bill Warr, now an elderly man, who put on the gloves with him to see what he was made of. As a result of this trial, Warr backed Jem against Paddington Jones, whom he easily beat. In the following year he fought a drawn battle with Jack Bartholomew, when quite out of condition. In 1800 he was matched with Bartholomew again and fought him for three hundred guineas a side on Finchley Common. Belcher had already shown himself as a brilliantly scientific boxer, aggressive, “never to be denied,” as they say. But with Bartholomew, a much heavier and stronger man, he showed how well he could defend himself, “milling on the retreat” when necessary. In spite of this Bartholomew dashed at him at the beginning, and, forcing down his guard, knocked Jem down. So certain were Bartholomew’s backers that he had the fight in one hand, so to say, that they immediately sent off messengers to London announcing his victory. This was a little premature, for no sooner had those messengers left the ring-side than Belcher with lightning speed hit his opponent several times in succession without a return, and finished a brilliant round by throwing him a hard cross-buttock. The effects of this handicapped Bartholomew for the rest of the encounter. He had plenty of pluck, and all of it was needed. The moral courage required to stand up and take a beating from a much lighter man, or rather a boy, is very great. The rounds were short and very fierce, seventeen being fought in twenty minutes. And at the end of that time Jem sent home a tremendous body-blow which knocked Bartholomew down and out of time. He was unable to reach the scratch after the half-minute’s rest.

After this Belcher thrashed Andrew Gamble in five rounds and nine minutes. His next battle, quite an important one in regarding the man’s record, was yet but a brawl at the ring-side of another fight. Just after the encounter between Isaac Bittoon and Tom Jones in July of 1801, Joe Berks, the Shropshire butcher (who figures in somewhat similar circumstances with Boy Jim in Sir A. Conan Doyle’s Rodney Stone), somewhat elated by wine, called out, “Where’s young Jem Belcher? Where’s your champion?” So Jem went up to him and asked him what he wanted. The reply was a quick blow which Belcher, ever on the alert, stopped. They thereupon settled down to a bye-battle which lasted for nineteen minutes and which Jem Belcher decisively won.

However, it was manifest that Berks had been fighting under the handicap of considerable intoxication, and a set battle was finally arranged between these two in the following November. They met at Hurley Bottom, near Maidenhead.

Joe Berks was much the stronger man, and though early in the fight Jem laid open his nose with a vicious right and later cut his forehead so that Joe lost a lot of blood, his seconds finding it impossible to staunch it, he fought like a tiger. In the ninth round after these misfortunes and when he had been getting much the worst of it, he dashed in, through, as it were, Jem’s raining blows, seized hold of him and hurled him down with terrific force. Joe Berks was a gallant ruffian, and though utterly defeated in sixteen rounds and twenty-five minutes refused to give in. Finally his seconds threw up the sponge on his behalf. He was much cut and bruised both in face and body, while young Jem Belcher hardly had a mark to show, and seemed quite unhurt. He declared afterwards that he never felt a blow throughout the fight—which is probably untrue.

After he had beaten Joe Berks again and Fearby, the Young Ruffian, in fourteen and eleven rounds respectively, Jem Belcher was generally regarded as the Champion.

It was after these fights that a great misfortune befell him. Jem, who, like other fighters of his day, was made much of by sportsmen of all kinds, was playing racquets one afternoon with a Mr. Stewart at the court in St. Martin’s Street, when a ball struck him in the eye and literally smashed it. This was in July of 1803. The misfortune, great as it would have been to any man, was not at the moment calamitous, for Belcher had made enough money to enable him to settle down as a publican; and he now took the “Jolly Butchers” in Wardour Street, Soho. It was supposed that he would never dream of fighting again, blind as he was in one eye; and no one challenged his championship. For two years he maintained the dignity of champion, until the exploits of Henry—commonly called Hen—Pearce, the “Game Chicken,” roused him from his retirement.

Though in years Pearce was just a little older than Jem, he had been his protégé, and Belcher had brought him up from his native Bristol a few years before. Pearce stood 5 ft. 9 in. and weighed 13 stone, having a figure like Tom Johnson’s. He was slow, and his knowledge of and skill in boxing was by no means equal to his master’s, but he was very strong. In 1804 he had beaten Joe Berks, and in the following year John Gulley, after a tremendous battle which lasted for fifty-nine rounds and one hour and ten minutes. After this he was generally acclaimed as Champion of England. And at that Jem Belcher’s bitter envy rose like flame. He couldn’t bear to see even his friend whom he had taught and introduced to the London Ring on his own old throne. To the great surprise of everybody he challenged Pearce, and the fight took place on December 6th, 1805, at Blyth, near Doncaster. The “Napoleon of the Ring,” as Jem was sometimes called, owing to his slight physical resemblance to our great enemy of that period, was the favourite, despite his blind eye. But directly he stripped the betting changed to 5-4 on Pearce. The landlord of the “Jolly Butchers” had not improved his physique during the two years of retirement.

Though still a young man Belcher had all the sensations of a returning veteran. Indeed it takes a young man to feel that kind of position strongly. Despite the jealousy which had prompted the challenge, there was a romantic atmosphere about all the circumstances of this battle. The half-blind hero, thin, weedy, delicate, fighting the new and sturdier champion; skill and a wonderful spirit pitted against solid bone and muscle. By the time the fight had begun, Jem Belcher felt the romance of it more keenly than his unjust resentment.

We may regard Jem as the first perfect exponent of that splendid blow, the straight and simple left lead. And after the usual caution when the men first met it was with a lightning left, but fiercely hard, that he drew first blood, cutting Pearce’s eye severely. It was like old times—it was always the same way: Joe Berks was strong and so was Fearby, but they could not stop him, Jem Belcher. That left had gone in easily enough. He knew how to hit, did Jem. Strength wasn’t everything. But—what was this? There were uncomfortable abilities in strength after all. The Game Chicken took his blow and heeded not his bleeding eye-blow and then he closed, and his grip tightened and tightened, until Jem was like a helpless child in his huge brawny arms, and presently he was flung violently upon the turf. Something in sheer strength, when all’s said.

But there’s a good deal in boxing too. Belcher feinted with his left and sent home a hard body-blow with his right, repeating it in the next moment. Pearce’s streaming eye hampered him a good deal, but even yet he could see sometimes when he wiped the blood away, while Jem, from his corresponding eye, could see nothing. Swinging his weight forward, he aimed a tremendous blow with the right at Jem, who, with all his old coolness and dexterity, guarded it, and joined gladly in the fierce rally that ensued. Then in a lull out came Pearce’s long arms again to seize Jem in a bear-like hug and throw him down.

And so they fought on. Other things being equal, the boxer wins. And so far as boxing goes Jem had this battle all his own way, but he could not withstand that grim hug, which caught him round after round about his middle and hurled him, shaken and weakening, to the ground.

And yet in the fifth round, greatly daring, Jem carried the war to his opponent and threw him; though the effort of doing so was beyond all wisdom. In the next round Belcher was boxing again with cold skill and neat precision, but his old vigour was lacking. He looked a sick man, though his remaining eye was bright and open. They wrestled for a fall, but the heavy Pearce was uppermost. In the seventh round both went down together after Jem had suffered some severe punishment with his head “in chancery” under the Chicken’s arm, but in the eighth he showed himself the old champion. Shaken and weakened as he had been, he gathered himself together and hit out as he had been used to do. If only he could keep this up! He knew that he had only too little reserve of strength, but surely Pearce could not endure this hammering for long. Using his right chiefly now, he hit his opponent as he liked and when he liked, and when Pearce showed signs of exhaustion, Jem wound up the round by throwing him clean out of the ring.

But when they came up again Jem was bitterly disappointed. Pearce was very strong. His shaking had done him little harm. Belcher hit him hard in the face, but he could take it all and more. They fell together, but Jem knew that unless he could beat him soon, he was done.

In the twelfth round it was plain to every one that Jem’s strength was going, and he knew it himself. He made a desperate effort, but it was of no use against this rock of a man. Pearce closed and threw him half over the ropes, so that he was at his mercy, but he stood away. “I’ll take no advantage o’ thee, Jem,” he said, “I’ll not hit thee, lest I hurt thine other eye.”

Men of Belcher’s temperament and in his position can brook no pity, and Pearce’s gallant sentiments only enraged him. His hits were growing weak, he was panting for his breath, his knees were shaking, but even so he contrived to end the thirteenth round by throwing the Chicken down.

In the next round he tried to gain time. He was bleeding severely from several deep cuts about his face, and it was increasingly hard to will himself to go on doing his hopeless best. He fought as much as possible on the retreat, trying to keep away. But the Chicken saw a chance of finishing the fight quickly and dashed in, hitting Jem with great force under his blind eye. Then he threw him.

A little later Pearce again got Jem over the ropes in a helpless position and again stepped back, refusing to take advantage of him. In falling sideways it was thought that Jem had broken a rib in hard contact with a ring post. He winced as he came up for the seventeenth round. He was not merely so weak that he could hardly stand, but he was suffering great pain. His pluck was exemplary, he stood up and did his best to box, guarding a blow from time to time and trying to put in a return. But now Pearce had the battle in his hands. He hit Jem as he pleased, as Jem had only a short while ago hit him and ended the round by throwing him.

In the next round Jem came up staggering to the scratch, but once there he found that he could not even lift his left arm at all, and with a bitterness in his heart such as he had dreamed that he would never know, he gave in.

And Pearce, to show how strong he was, could not resist showing off by jumping out of the ring and back again and turning a somersault.

The fight had lasted but thirty-five minutes in all.

CHAPTER V
JEM BELCHER AND TOM CRIBB

After Jem Belcher’s signal defeat at the huge hands of Pearce, the “Game Chicken,” two years passed by before the temptation once again to risk the chances of the ring overpowered the old champion. During that time his life as a publican had by no means improved his already enfeebled physique. And those two years had seen the rise to fame (and that fame steadily growing) of one Tom Cribb, a Gloucestershire man like Pearce and Belcher himself, a heavy, slow, ponderous fellow, who had beaten good men, the best of whom was Bill Richmond, the black, and who had been beaten but once, when quite out of condition, by George Nichols.

Once again Belcher’s jealousy blazed up, and he challenged Cribb. The challenge was accepted. At that stage of Cribb’s career it could in no wise be avoided, but his backers were not at all easy. They knew what Jem Belcher could do, they knew that their own man was dead slow. They were afraid that, despite the old champion’s unathletic life, Tom Cribb would never be able to touch him.

The fight took place on April 8th, 1807, for £200 a side. The place chosen was Moulsey Hurst, on the Thames, almost opposite to Hampton Court, the scene of innumerable prizefights. The battle attracted all the foremost sportsmen of the day, and the gutteral exclamations of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., were heard amongst the chatter at the ring-side. John Jackson kept “time.”

In spite of his pasty face and weedy appearance Jem was still the favourite. His arms, never remarkable for muscular development, looked thin and meagre, his whole body poor. But the lion-hearted courage of the man had so firm a hold upon the imagination of his friends that they believed him still invincible. It was easy enough to invent excuses for his defeat by Pearce.

Cribb was a shorter man, but fully two stone heavier. He was built on the heroic scale, with huge chest and shoulders and the arms of an inelegant Hercules. To the more dismal of his friends, who warned him of Jem’s speed, he replied, grinning. “You’ll see, he’ll break his hands on my head.” Cribb’s was a very tough nut, and with considerable experience behind him he knew it.

The fight began with the usual caution. Then Jem darted in with a couple of spanking blows at his adversary’s face, and almost before Cribb knew where he was, he had jumped away again out of reach. Again Jem did this and yet again. All the stories he had heard of Cribb’s great strength were comfortably balanced by the discovered truth of the stories about his slowness. But the next time Jem leapt in upon his man Cribb was ready with a heavy right-hand counter on the ribs; and then before he could get away Jem found himself whirled off his feet and flung hard upon the ground.

In the next round Jem backed away, tempting Cribb to try for another fall, and as the big fellow lumbered after him, Jem stopped abruptly and sent in lightning blows with left and right, a bang under the chin and again and again on the face and nose, so that the blood ran fast. Then like the vainglorious fool that he was, he closed with Cribb, and exerting all his strength, flung him on the ground.

It was an idiotic thing to do, for to throw a man two stone heavier than yourself is more exhausting than to be thrown by him. And Jem Belcher knew it, but seeing the opportunity could not resist it, well knowing as he must have done, that Cribb could endure any amount of such treatment. Thereafter for a little while, it is true, Jem was all over Cribb. He was infinitely the better and the faster boxer. Lord Saye and Sele, Jem’s principal backer, watched him with satisfaction. “He’ll have Tom blinded in half an hour,” he said: for again and again Jem’s sharp knuckles had landed on his opponent’s shaggy eyebrows. But the amateur had not thoroughly studied the anatomy of Cribb. He had not noticed, for example, that his eyes were unusually deep set, so that though his brows were badly bruised and constant sharp blows had fallen on the cheekbones as well, the subsequent swelling had not closed Tom’s eyes as it would have other men’s. Moreover, when blow on blow upon the hard bone of his brows had lacerated the swollen flesh, the flow of blood partly relieved the swelling. But for some rounds Jem Belcher hammered him unmercifully. Left and right, quickly following up advantages, he drove Cribb before him round and across the ring. Thrice in succession he exerted his strength and, closing, threw his antagonist heavily upon the grass.

But Tom Cribb was hard and healthy and strong. He might be a poor boxer at this time, but he knew how to play a waiting game, and he had the moral courage to bide his time and the physical courage to endure the inevitable punishment, and now at last he saw that Jem’s rushes were slower. The grim-faced, battered fighter looked across the ring at the slim and delicate fellow, so light a burden upon his second’s knee, whose face showed not a mark, and he nodded to his own attendants. “You watch,” he said.

When they came up again, the spectators noticed that there were bruises about Jem’s ribs, and that when Tom’s infrequent body blows did land, he winced with obvious pain. But he continued to take care of his head. For a round or two Jem had been slowing down, then once again he pulled himself together and went for Cribb with the fury of despair. He understood now what it was to fight a man so vastly his better in sheer strength. And under the rain of his punches Tom Cribb retreated and at length fell prostrate in his own corner. Many folk at the ringside thought that the fight was over. Half a minute to go—could Cribb recover? His seconds sluiced him with cold water, rubbed his limbs, dragged him up. There he was, staggering at the scratch, a pitiful sight, broken, bleeding, but upright, and, as the moments passed, steadier, with left foot out, hands up and head erect. And again Jem went for him and landed a couple of blows, right and left, upon his head. Then he backed away towards his own corner, glancing at his fists as he did so. Tom Cribb grinned, and turned for an instant towards his own corner, nodding, as much as to say, “Told you so.” Jem came forward again and made a hesitating attempt at a blow. Tom guarded it easily and went after him, pressing him towards the ropes and finally sending him down with a heavy right on the ribs. In the next round Jem came up again, clearly afraid to hit, and this time with a terrific-body blow Cribb sent him clear through the ropes.