Benjamin Caunt, like his noted opponent Bendigo, was a native of Nottinghamshire. He was born on the 22nd of March, 1815, at the village of Hucknall Torkard, his parents being tenants of Lord Byron, the poet, a fact of which the huge, unsentimental Ben in after-life was fond of boasting. His father having been engaged in some humble capacity at Newstead, Ben had some traditions of the wayward genius, more or less apocryphal. According to his own account (he was certainly a first-rate shot) his earliest employment was as gamekeeper or watcher; his Nottingham opponents insisted on his having been a “navvy.” His size and strength might well fit him for either occupation, his height being 6ft. 2½in., and his weight 14st. 7lb. Caunt appears at an early age to have aspired to pugilistic honours, and acquired some local reputation by being victor in a couple of battles, of which, however, we have no reliable details. His first recorded contest is, therefore, his encounter with William Thompson, of Nottingham, on the 21st July, 1835, near Appleby House, Notts, when he had just completed his twentieth year, wherein he was defeated by the greater experience, shifty tactics, and superior boxing skill of the afterwards famous Bendigo. (See BENDIGO, Chap. I., page 6, _ante_.) Caunt’s next appearance within the ropes was attended with better fortune. On the 17th August, 1837, he met and defeated a local celebrity, William Butler, at Stoneyford, Notts, in fourteen rounds, for a stake of £20 a side. In this battle his opponent, a 12-stone man, was beaten by weight, strength, and resolute, though by no means scientific, fighting. In like manner Boneford, a big one, was polished off in six rounds by “Young Ben,” at Sunrise Hill, Notts, in November of the same year. In the interval his former opponent had been rapidly rising in fistic fame. He had defeated Brassey, of Bradford (May 24th, 1836), Young Langan, of Liverpool (January 24th, 1837), and Bill Looney, another big one (June 13th, 1837). These exploits could not fail to attract public attention, and the patrons of the P. R. were anxious to bring the antagonists together once again, an anxiety fully shared by Caunt and Bendigo themselves. “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” so in this case preliminaries were arranged with much greater facility than in after-times. The stakes were posted to £100 on each side, and the day, Monday, April 3rd, 1838, fixed for the encounter, the field of battle to be in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. [Illustration: BENJAMIN CAUNT, CHAMPION 1842.] As a record of times and manners, and modes of travel, we shall give a sketch of how and in what company the representative of _Bell’s Life in London_, then, _quâ_ the Ring, the only sporting “oracle,” was wont to make his way to distant battlefields, ere the steam steed had rendered the mail coach, the “Highflyer,” the “Red Rover,” the “Age,” _et hoc genus omne_, obsolete as public conveyances:――