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
have expedited his downfall. Bendigo returned to
Nottingham the same night, decorated with his well-earned
laurels; and it is to be hoped he will enjoy his
victory with becoming modesty and civility, bearing in
mind that he has yet to conquer Caunt before he can be
proclaimed Champion of England.
The Deaf ’un, who showed on the Friday at Jem Burn’s, with the
exception of his “nob” was all right. He complains most of having been
stripped of his belt, which was attached to his truss by a loop, and
the absence of which filled him with apprehension. This, combined with
his admitted want of condition, he declares placed him on the wrong
side the winning post. He is, however, most anxious for another trial,
and instructs us to say that he still has supporters who will match
him once more against Bendigo for £100 a side, the fight to come off
in the same ring with Hannan and Walker; Burke to be permitted to wear
his belt, as in the case of Peter Crawley and Jack Langan. It is
needless to say that Burke never again faced Bendigo in the ring,
getting on a match at this time with Jem Bailey.
For several months the newspapers were rife with challenges from Caunt
to Bendigo and Bendigo to Caunt; each “Champion” roving about the
counties in which he was most popular upon the “benefit dodge,” each
with a star company, and each awakening the city or town where his
company performed with a thundering challenge, while each pugilistic
planet revolved in his own peculiar orbit without giving the other a
chance of a “collision.”
In this interval Jem Ward presented a “Champion’s” belt to Bendigo, at
the Queen’s Theatre, Liverpool, amid great acclamations, and again the
tiresome game of challenging and making appointments for “a meeting to
draw up articles,” at places where the challenged party never attended
or meant to show, went on. Brassey, of Bradford, too, having in the
interim beaten Young Langan, of Liverpool, and Jem Bailey, put in his
claim and joined the chorus of challengers. Burke also offered himself
for £100, which Bendigo declined, according to his published
challenge. In the latter half of 1839 we read as follows:――
“_To the Editor of_ ‘BELL’S LIFE IN LONDON.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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