Produced by Roberta Staehlin, David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) _NORTH COUNTRY SPORTS AND PASTIMES._ Wrestling and Wrestlers: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF CELEBRATED ATHLETES OF THE NORTHERN RING; TO WHICH IS ADDED _Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting_. BY JACOB ROBINSON AND SIDNEY GILPIN. Of all the athletic amusements of the people, Wrestling is beyond doubt the best.--CHRISTOPHER NORTH. LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS. CARLISLE: THE WORDSWORTH PRESS, 75 SCOTCH STREET. MDCCCXCIII. TO THE MEMORY OF JACOB ROBINSON, THESE PAGES ARE _GRATEFULLY DEDICATED_, BY HIS FELLOW-WORKER, SIDNEY GILPIN. PREFACE. Every dale and valley, every nook and corner, throughout Cumberland, Westmorland, and North Lancashire, at all likely to yield materials, has been ransacked and laid under subservience in the compilation of this volume; and it now becomes the pleasant duty to record the fact, that not a single instance of unwillingness was met with, on the part of the multitude of narrators, who supplied the items of the various events chronicled. The local newspaper files have materially aided our labours, in a variety of ways. Besides supplying many passing incidents, we have found them, in some instances, exceedingly useful in the way of verifying and correcting dates. A brief description of Swiss Wrestling was promised, for the introductory chapter, by a native of that country resident in London. This promise yielded no fruit at the time, and it is a matter of regret that it still remains unfulfilled. Of Wrestling in France, we have not been able to glean much information, although enquiries were set on foot through the columns of _Notes and Queries_ and _Bell's Life in London_. For much information contained in the article on Wrestling in Scotland, we are indebted to Mr. Walter Scott of Innerleithen; and for a few other items we have to thank Mr. Robert Murray of Hawick. While the feats of many well known wrestlers are to be found in these pages, the names of others equally well known are necessarily omitted; but we may be able to publish a record of their achievements at some future time. With a full consciousness of many imperfections, we now leave our work to the judgment of those impartial readers, who may honour it with a perusal. LOCAL WORKS ON THE SUBJECT. _Wrestliana: an Historical Account of Ancient and Modern Wrestling._ By William Litt. Whitehaven: R. Gibson, 1823. Second Edition of the above, (reprinted from the "Whitehaven News,") by Michael and William Alsop, 1860. _Wrestliana: a Chronicle of the Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestlings in London, since the year 1824._ By Walter Armstrong. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1870.