way, and sooner or later he would get past the champion’s guard. And presently Slack jumped in and landed a tremendous blow between Broughton’s eyes. And the champion’s face was soft from good living. He had not been hit like that for many a year. Both his eyes swelled up at once. The spectators saw that Broughton was dazed. He seemed stupid and slow--not himself at all. And--they could not understand this--he hesitated and flinched before his man. The Duke of Cumberland, who was his chief patron, could hardly believe his eyes. Broughton afraid? Broughton, from whom all others flinched away, who stood so boldly and straight before his man, who, though slow and heavy, was so sure and never gave ground? Slack stood away for a moment and Broughton came forward with his hands before him, feeling his way. Then the people saw that his eyes were entirely swollen up and closed. The man was blind. The Duke was slower than the others. “What are you about, Broughton?” he shouted to him. “You can’t fight. You’re beat.” To which Broughton replied, vaguely turning his head about as though uncertain from which quarter his backer’s voice had come,-- “I can’t see my man, your Highness. I am blind--not beat. Only put me in front of him and he’ll not win yet.” But Slack dashed in again and Broughton could not ward off a blow. Still strong, quite unbeaten in the literal sense of the word, he had to give in. It was an accident in the game and yet it was a part of the game. The whole fight was over in fourteen minutes. In order to compare those days with these, it is interesting to know that tickets for the Amphitheatre on this occasion cost a guinea and a half, whilst the money taken at the door besides fetched £150. Slack, as winner, was given the “produce of the house,” which in all amounted to £600. When we have in mind the difference in the value of money then and now, we must realise that even in the early days of the Prize-Ring a successful boxer stood to win a considerable sum. The chief difference in his earning capacity lay in the fact that bare-knuckle fights were necessarily less frequent than the softer encounters of to-day. Nor was the sport widely popular at that time, the patrons and spectators being chiefly confined to publicans and other good sinners. 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.