Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger BaitingRobinson, Jacob
History
Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting
Robinson, Jacob
Wrestlers; Wrestling
Clattan's "experience with the bruising fraternity"--we quote from a clever
notice, which appeared in the _Whitehaven News_--"was confined to
travelling with the celebrated pugilists, Tom Molyneaux, the Black, (who
twice contested the championship with Tom Cribb,) and Jack Carter, the
latter of whom fought a terrible battle with Oliver at Gretna Green in
1816.... With these heroes, John made a tour in the provinces and Scotland,
extending over four or five years, in the course of which he gave and took
more hard knocks, as an exhibition sparrer, from his formidable and
dexterous colleagues, than would satisfy the ambition of most men; but, as
we have said, the big man never acquired a taste for fighting. It was
scarcely possible, under any circumstances, to surprise him out of one of
the quietest dispositions and finest tempers with which giant was ever
blessed; and the sole use he made of the hard schooling he received at the
hands of Molyneaux and Carter, and the countless yokels, ambitious of
fistic distinction, was to amuse a few of his patrons. The art and mystery
of bruising was practised nowhere more extensively and industriously than
by a chosen band of youths who frequented John's house in the Market-place,
Whitehaven. To oblige these young gentlemen, and test their dexterity,
'Clattan' has been known to sit down in a chair, to ensure something like
equality of height, and 'set himself'; and very dexterous had young
Whitehaven to be if it could hit and get away, even under these
circumstances, without a counter tap, as from a playful steam hammer....
Many wonderful tales are told of 'Clattan.' He could crack nuts with his
thumb and forefinger as easily as a schoolboy could crush a gooseberry, and
we forget the enormous weight he could suspend round his wrist while he
wrote his name against the wall."
Mc.Laughlan was an innkeeper in Whitehaven for a great number of years,
being the landlord of "The Highlandman," or "Rising Sun," in the
Market-place. Here he drove a flourishing trade, which resulted in a great
measure from frequenters of his house always finding him to be civil and
obliging.
At Whitehaven, Clattan joined the town band formed by Mr. Heywood, clerk to
the magistrates. In this capacity, he invariably marched first in
processions, and did what he could to make sweet music out of the
instrument he played, an immense trombone, his giant-like form towering
above his fellows, like that of Goliath of Gath among the Gittites.
Leaving Whitehaven about 1838 or 1839, he settled in Liverpool, where he
was employed about the docks for several years. His wife, Betty, afterwards
kept a lodging-house in Sparling-street; but more latterly they lived
retired and in comfortable circumstances, principally through the kindness
of one of his sons, the captain of a trading vessel.
Mc.Laughlan died in Liverpool, in October, 1876, at the advanced age of
eighty-five years.
BULL BAITING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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