Produced by Richard Tonsing, deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) PUGILISTICA THE HISTORY OF BRITISH BOXING [Illustration: SOUTHWARK FAIR. VOL. 1. _Frontispiece_ ] PUGILISTICA THE HISTORY OF BRITISH BOXING CONTAINING LIVES OF THE MOST CELEBRATED PUGILISTS; FULL REPORTS OF THEIR BATTLES FROM CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS, WITH AUTHENTIC PORTRAITS, PERSONAL ANECDOTES, AND SKETCHES OF THE PRINCIPAL PATRONS OF THE PRIZE RING, FORMING A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE RING FROM FIG AND BROUGHTON, 1719‒40, TO THE LAST CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE BETWEEN KING AND HEENAN, IN DECEMBER 1863 BY HENRY DOWNES MILES EDITOR OF “THE SPORTSMAN’S MAGAZINE.” AUTHOR OF “THE BOOK OF FIELD SPORTS,” “ENGLISH COUNTRY LIFE,” ETC., ETC. VOLUME ONE Edinburgh JOHN GRANT 1906 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE TO THE FIRST VOLUME. The history of “the Ring,” its rise and progress, the deeds of the men whose manly courage illustrate its contests in the days of its prosperity and popularity, with the story of its decline and fall, as yet remain unwritten. The author proposes in the pages which follow to supply this blank in the home-records of the English people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The space covered in these volumes extends over one hundred and forty-four years, from the time when James Fig (the first acknowledged champion) opened his amphitheatre in the Oxford Road, in May, 1719, to the championship battle between John Camel Heenan, the American, and Tom King, the English champion, at Wadhurst, in Kent, on the 10th of December, 1863.