It must be admitted that Bendigo, in the course of this battle, exhibited extraordinary powers of punishment; his hits were terrific, as Caunt’s condition after the battle testified, his head and body being dreadfully shattered, but still, from the specimen thus afforded, we should not regard Bendigo as a fair stand-up fighter; he was shifty, and too much on the get-away-and-get-down system. With Caunt, however, it must be admitted there was every excuse for this course, for with four stone extra to cope with in weight, and six inches in height, it required no common nerve and caution to escape annihilation. Caunt, who claims the “Championship,” is anything but a well-scienced man; he hits at random, and has no idea of self-defence. His great attributes are game and strength, which he possesses in a pre-eminent degree. Throughout the fight there was not a single knock-down blow, which, when Caunt’s length and weight are considered, is the strongest evidence that the big one lacked the gift of hitting at points, or, as John Jackson expressed it, “judging time and distance accurately.” When we look back at the recorded battles of Mendoza, Jackson, Dutch Sam, Gully, and Randall, and remember the fights of Spring, Crawley, and Jem Ward, the pretensions of Caunt to the Championship must point the moral of the Ring’s decline. Pulling, hauling, squeezing, and hugging, the grand offensive manœuvres of Big Ben’s style of boxing, would have been scouted as a disgrace to all but pitmen, navvies, and provincial “roughs.” Bendigo, after the battle, proceeded to Selby, where he remained for the night. He appeared little the worse for the encounter, so far as hitting was concerned. The only marks of punishment were a flush under the right eye, a swelling under the left ear, some marks of hits on the lower part of the right shoulder-blade, and sundry excoriations and abrasions of the cuticle, bearing full evidence of the severe squeezing and scrapings on the ropes inflicted by the Bruin-like hugs of his huge antagonist. To us Bendigo expressed his readiness to meet his giant opponent “anywhere, anyhow, on any terms――to-morrow, next week, or next month, anything to accommodate the big chucklehead”――which, as we afterwards knew, was Bendy’s uncomplimentary but characteristic epithet, not only in speaking of, but in personally addressing, his gigantic rival.