Among the distinguished athletes of a byegone period, not one in the long list has conferred a more enduring celebrity on the wrestlings of the north, than the Threlkeld champion, Tom Nicholson. He owed this high position not to overpowering strength and weight, but to what lends its principal charm to back-hold wrestling--science and activity. These, added to entire confidence and fearlessness, rendered him a match for any of the big ones of his day. In youth he was a wild, harum-scarum sort of a fellow, hardly ever out of one scrape before he was floundering into another. A fight or a fray seemed always welcome. "He cared for nowte." A Jem Belcher of the wrestling ring and the pugilistic ring, too, of the north; one who never feared the face of man, and had so much confidence in his own powers, that whoever he chanced to meet in the ring, whether as "big as a hoose side," or "strang as a yak tree," he felt confident he could throw him. He stood close upon six feet; lean, muscular, with broad and powerful shoulders; had remarkably long arms, reaching--when at full length, and standing perfectly upright--down to his knees; his weight never exceeding thirteen stones; without an ounce of superflous flesh. He generally commenced the attack by striking the back of his opponent's heel with the right foot. Tom was born at Threlkeld, near Keswick, about the year 1785, and died at Keswick in February, 1851. His father, "oald Ben Nicholson," acted as parish clerk and sexton at Threlkeld for many years, following, too, the occupation of a builder. He brought up his two sons, Tom and John, as builders, or in the vernacular of the district, "wo'ers." Tom was the elder brother, and a much more powerful man than John. The latter, in the opinion of many good judges, was superior both in science and quickness. Being a light weight, his name does not appear with much prominence in the wrestling records of the time. Special prizes were not then given for light weights; and in consequence, John did not often become last stander. The two brothers were, however, sometimes first and second. It was not alone in wrestling that Tom became a noted character. He could probably display more feats of activity in his day, than any man in the north of England. He has been known to "hitch an' kick" ten feet high: that is to say, if a hat were placed on a pole, or hung on the ceiling of a house ten feet high, he could leap up, and hit the hat with one foot, without falling to the ground. Among other places, this was done at the Red Lion inn, Grasmere, in 1810, where Miles Dixon, Harry Chapman, and other athletes were onlookers. Another feat of his consisted in covering twelve yards in three leaps of three rises, measuring from heel to heel. This he often did, leaping the full distance forwards, and then turning round and leaping the same distance back again. A frequent saying of his was, that he could "stand a yard, stride a yard, an' tak' a yard under ayder arm."