_born Nov. 25 1794 5 feet 6 Inches high weighs 10^{st}, 6^{lb}; has beaten Jack the Butcher in 20 minutes, Walton in 10 minutes Geo Dodd in 25 minutes, Ugly Borrock the Jew in 12 minutes, West Country Dick in 33 minutes, Holt in 25 minutes & only 8 rounds. Belasco in 51 minutes & only 7 rounds, Parish in 53 minutes & only 11 rounds, Turner in 2 Hours & 16 Minutes, Martin in 53 Minutes & many others of late note, in sport he has never been beaten._] Reviewing the evidence, it certainly does seem that the referee made an error of judgment. Having made it, he stuck to it, as he should. He was, of course, accused of being intimidated by the ruffians whose heavy sticks were close about his head. The facts of the case were presented to “The Old Squire” afterwards, especially Caunt’s quite natural supposition that the round had ended. The referee replied that he had given his decision to the best of his ability from what he saw. His view of the proceedings was constantly being interrupted, and it was quite possible that he did not see everything. He pointed out, further, that against his wishes he had been chosen as referee by both the parties. It is perfectly useless to make any comment other than that the referee should certainly have been stricter in the earlier stages of the fight. On this occasion the principals themselves, especially the winner, were not blameless: but the chief fault, of course, lay with the person or persons who organised the band of ruffians from Nottingham. These men had no silly idea of putting money on the chances of Bendigo and backing their sanguine opinion. They intended to subscribe a certainty. Caunt and Bendigo were bitter enemies for a long time after this, but in 1850, they had a great joint Benefit, at which they at last shook hands and became fast friends. Bendigo was a bit of rapscallion, certainly; but he was a born clown, with the keenest sense of fun, which lasted almost to his dying day. His acrobatic feats even when he was an old man were the astonishment of his contemporaries and the delight of children. He was, as you might say, a funny mixture: a great gardener, a patient fisherman, in bouts a drinker who, with very little liquor in him, went clean off his weak head, and once cleared a butcher’s shop in his drunken rage, hurling legs of mutton at the jeering crowd upon the pavement. At the considerable risk of his own he saved a man’s life from drowning in the Trent, and indignantly refused a material reward. In 1870, some revivalists seeing the peculiar possibilities of this brand if he could only be snatched from the burning, “converted” him; and “Thormanby” tells the story of how Lord Longford, his old backer, once meeting him in a London street dressed in a black coat and a white tie, stopped him and asked, “Hallo, Bendy! What’s _your_ little game now?” “Truly, my lord,” Bendigo answered with an impeccable unction, “I am fighting Satan now, and Scripture saith that victory shall be mine.”