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
9.――O’Connell showed some game, but it was evidently of
an expiring effort. He faced his man, made a blow,
which fell short, and was met by Burke with a terrible
facer, which set the claret flowing in a rapid stream
from O’Connell’s nostrils. All was over.
10.――Time was repeatedly called. O’Connell rose but
could not stir a step towards his man. Burke said, “I
wish to fight honourable――I will not strike him――does
your man wish to fight any more?” O’Connell’s second
immediately gave in the battle, and Burke was declared
the conqueror.
A word or two respecting the rival combatants:
O’Connell never was or can be capable of figuring with
credit as a fighter. He wants bottom, activity, and
science――three things which are indispensable in the
formation of a boxer. From the third round he had not
the slightest chance of winning――it was a doubloon to a
shin-plaster, and no takers. The day was peculiarly
propitious, and the company of a very respectable
description. Those who conducted this affair deserve
all praise. Not the slightest disturbance of any kind
took place. It was what the Prize Ring ever ought to
be――an exhibition of manly and courageous contest.”
We need add nothing to this “round, unvarnished tale,” written by a
literary gentleman who had never before witnessed a prize-fight. In
Burke, his Irish opponent found, notwithstanding his foul treatment at
New Orleans, a brave and humane antagonist; and that, despite the
contaminating effects of bad example, the Deaf’un preserved in the New
World the high and generous qualities he exhibited in his own country.
Cant, cruelty, and cowardice have crushed out the courageous
confidence in the unarmed fist as the weapon in hand-to-hand
encounters, and the American populace trust for victory to the
bowie-knife and the revolver, when man opposes man to settle their
personal differences “in a higher phase of civilisation.” (?)
As the patrons of the Ring are, such will its professors be, holds
good as an axiom in pugilism as in every other science. A few
unprejudiced and enlightened Americans, seeing the horrors and
savagery of Irish-American rowdyism, entertained the milling
missionary, and strove to propagate his principles, but were in a
minute and powerless minority among a multitude of howling saints and
savages――for extremes meet in this as in all other things. To these
friends and sympathisers Burke bade an affectionate farewell, after a
handsome benefit, and arrived at Liverpool on the 25th of June, 1838.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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