Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 3 (of 3): 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 1863Miles, Henry Downes
History
Pugilistica: The History of British Boxing, Volume 3 (of 3): 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
Miles, Henry Downes
Boxing
“Where there’s a will there’s a way.” The soldier had no time to
spare, and was prompt; the men promised to be at the “Old Barge
House,” Woolwich, on the morning of the 8th of May, meeting on the
previous day at Josh’s “Half-Moon” tap, to make final arrangements.
Tom Oliver, who was present, was officially engaged, also Jack Clarke;
Dick Curtis and Frank Redmond volunteered to pick up the Deaf’un, and
all was smoothly settled.
There was a select muster, with an unusual sprinkling of swells, on
that pleasant morning of the merry month of May in the Woolwich
Marshes, near the “Old Barge House,” round the newly painted stakes
and a new set of ropes, &c., recently presented to Tom Oliver by the
F.P.C. (Fair Play Club), through the hands of Tom Belcher. The men
were punctual. Carter was waited on by Barney Aaron and Sol. Reubens
(who had lately fought Tom Smith, the East End Sailor Boy). Old Jack
certainly looked “hard,” and also, as Barney added, “brown and stale,
like a well-kept loaf.” He, however, stripped “big,” and showed the
outlines of the once boasted “Lancashire hero,” the opponent of
Spring, Richmond, Cribb (in a turn-up), Shelton, and Jem Ward. He was
neatly got up, but showing unmistakable marks of age, as well he
might, for Jack was now entering his 43rd summer, having been born in
September, 1789. The Deaf’un, too, was in good trim, deducting the
ugly defect of a stiff knee――a serious drawback when opposed to
length, weight, and height. Of these, however, the cheerful Deaf’un
made no account, and was as lively and quaint as a Merry Andrew, in
his grotesque green and yellow kickseys, and striped coverings of his
sturdy pedestals.
The fight, though displaying courage, offered little in the way of
science. For the first four rounds Carter bored in and drove the
Deaf’un against the ropes, where he tried in vain to hold him for a
“hug,” the Deaf’un hitting up sharply to the damage of Carter’s
figure-head, and then getting through his hands with little damage.
The Deaf’un was certainly out of order somewhere in the victualling
department, for towards the middle of the short fight he retched and
was violently sick from his exertions in a throw. This revived the
hopes of the Carter party, against whom the game was evidently going.
It was, however, but a passing gleam; the Deaf’un shook off his qualms
of indigestion, rattled in without standing for any repairs, old Jack
became stiff as a wooden image, then groggy as a sailor three sheets
in the wind, and finally, at the end of the 11th round, went down “all
of a heap,” and declared he “could fight no more,” at which conclusion
it took him only 25 minutes to arrive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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