Henry Downes Miles

“ Taylor, inspired with the thought of his fame and former victories, stood up like a hero; and Faulkner, recollecting that it must either make or break him, fought like a lion. After a terrible conflict of an hour and fifteen minutes, the veteran George Taylor acknowledged he was conquered. Greater courage and skill could not be displayed; and it was supposed, that had not Taylor laboured under the manifest disadvantage of an eye of which he had been blind for some time, Faulkner could not have beaten him; as the contest was only put an end to by Taylor having the other eye closed from a blow. ”

“ Looking at a mere prize-fight got up by the backers and friends of each party, it seems, in its abstract position, to be an useless brutality for two men, having no personal cause of quarrel, to bruise each other for the possession of gold; but, regarding it in another light, as the necessary display of a fair standard of combat, by the rights and regulations of which, throughout the country, all quarrels determined by personal conflict are to be settled, in this light it assumes a character of safe and wholesome public example, which its most strenuous opposers cannot with justice deny. ”

“ From this mode of attack the debilitated Jew stood no chance whatever. The strength of Sam, once so much the theme of his backers, was missing, and he appeared a mere shadow of his former self. He could not knock down Nosworthy, or even hit him away. This defeat of a great favourite may operate as a useful lesson: youth and strength must be served; and never was the position more clearly and decisively shown than in this instance. Sam was turned of forty-one years of age, and his irregularities of life must have dilapidated as fine a constitution as was ever possessed by man. ”

“ Before our hero was suffered to realise the title of the Champion of the Argo, the best men in the ship were pitted against him; but it would be beneath the dignity of our history to record the undistinguished names of the mere commoners who fell beneath the conquering arm of Scroggy, who, notwithstanding his pugilistic penchant, was the life and soul of the ship, and as remarkable for his readiness to assist a weaker messmate as to promote the general mirth of the crew. ”

“ Sam, however appeared least bruised, and the odds were slightly betted in his favour. In this round Sam displayed all that heroism and manly conduct which characterise the courageous pugilist. Having put in a most severe blow on his opponent’s head, over his guard, which stunned him, he was prepared to follow it by a right-handed hit, but desisted, drawing back his hand on seeing his adversary was already falling. Every one present applauded the generosity of the action. ”

“ Longevity is found in persons of habits the most opposite; but are not certain habits more favourable to it than others? The courage does not arise from mere boxing, from the mere beating, or being beat, but from the sentiments excited by the contemplation and cultivation of such practices. “Will it make no difference in the mass of people, whether their amusements are all of a pacific, pleasurable, and effeminate nature; or whether they are of a sort that calls forth a continued admiration of prowess and hardihood?” ”

“ Fighting, of course, is wrong; but there are occasions when.... I mean that one-handed fight of Sayers is one of the most spirit-stirring little stories; and with every love and respect for Morality, my spirit says to her, ‘Do, for goodness’ sake, my dear madam, keep your true, and pure, and womanly, and gentle remarks for another day. Have the great kindness to stand a leetle aside, and just let us see one or two more rounds between the men. That little man with the one hand powerless on his breast facing yonder giant for hours, and felling him, too, every now and then! ”

“ Myriads of persons left the metropolis, in all directions, to view the renowned Scroggins, among whom were Lord Yarmouth, Colonel Berkeley, Captain Barclay, etc. Vehicles of all descriptions, from the barouche and four to the scavenger’s mud-cart, were in requisition at an early hour, to reach the destined spot; the blood-horse, in all the pride of high breeding, was galloping by all, and the more humble donkey and the spare nacker trotting and snorting along the road, to be up in time. ”

“ The capabilities of Turner he positively ridiculed, treated him as a mere upstart pugilistic pretender, and flattered himself that the prowess of Turner would vanish before his punishing arm, like snow before the sun. For three nights previous to the battle taking place, the sporting houses were crowded to excess, and so very high did this modern Dutch Sam stand in the estimation of the knowing ones, that nothing less than three to one would be accepted, and that only from an idea that a chance hit or accident might operate against his usual success. ”

“ Nevertheless, poor Jem endeavoured to make up for deficiency of sight and aim by an astonishing and unequalled display of courage and gaiety; and though the skill and science on both sides deserved respect, the spectators could not avoid seeing that Belcher’s guard was no longer ready, and his rapid antagonist planted on him so severely and frequently as to excite the regret of his friends that such a combat should have been provoked, and that the envious infirmity of human nature should have thus blinded the mental judgment as well as the bodily sight of so able a champion. ”

“ The cove’s nob was metamorphosed in a twinkling, and, by way of a finisher, he received a blow that sent him rolling down the hill, to the no small diversion of Shelton and Tom. The latter now mounted his gig with all the sang froid possible, good-naturedly advising this would be fighting man never to threaten, in future, beating two persons at once. Upon the blade’s stopping at the nearest inn to clean his face from the claret it was deluged with, he learnt, to his great surprise, he had been engaged with the celebrated Tom Belcher. ”

“ The additional weight, added to the height from the parapet, was almost too much for the nearly exhausted energies of Pearce.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once;” and so it proved—Pearce’s brave heart leaped within him, and with a supreme effort he drew his trembling charge from the window, placed her safe upon the parapet, and in an instant she was out of danger. The delighted multitude was loud in their plaudits—and the almost lifeless sufferer clinging round the knees of her deliverer, invoked blessings on his name. ”

“ But all these objections were as a feather in the scale against the Jew. Weather could not affect him; no one could punish him; he hit as hard as Cribb; he was no mannerist; he set-to a hundred different ways; he altered his mode of fighting as circumstances required. Many seemed really to think, and plenty were forward enough to urge, that Sam was as well, if not better, without training, than undergoing the systematic precaution of invigorating the stamina. In short, he was the phenomenon of the fighting world; everything but a losing man. ”

“ Great was the excitement in Black Callerton when it was known that Geordie Stephenson had accepted Nelson’s challenge. Everybody said Nelson would ‘kill him.’ The villagers, the young men, and especially the boys of the village, with whom George was a great favourite, all wished he might beat Nelson, but they scarcely dared to say so. They came about him while he was at work in the engine-house to inquire if it was really true that he was going to fight Nelson? ‘Ay, ay; never fear for me, I’ll fight him,’ replied George coolly. And fight him he did. ”

“ If free trade, and unrestricted leave to carry on profession or calling are such fundamental principles with our state economists, why not free boxing? and why not leave the morale of pugilism, as well as the morality of its professors, to find its level in the neglect or the patronage, the esteem or the contempt, of the people at large? Boxing and boxing schools, as free Britons, we must have. ”

“ With dress of the best quality and fashion, the man of colour soon appeared a swell of the first magnitude. Maintaining, then, the highest secondary rank as a boxer, he dashed about regardless of future consequences to his milling fame. Pleasure was the order of the day with him, and the stews tended not only to ease him of his cash, but soon undermined that overwhelming power and pluck so conspicuously displayed in his terrible combats with the mighty Cribb. ”

“ Cooper was so far gone that he seemed not to have a hit in him. Shelton, like a good fighter, perceiving that the coup de grace was necessary, and no danger to be apprehended, from giving it, went boldly in to pepper his opponent, and put an end to his troubles; when, strange to say, the guard of Cooper was so fine, that he parried off all the force of his opponent’s blows, till he fell from mere exhaustion. (“Bravo! Cooper; you’re an excellent man.”) ”

“ He was, however, in the most exhausted state; and nothing but a lack of the physique to second his science and courage made Harry the loser of this most determined contest.
We here drop the curtain on the pugilistic career of Harry Holt, whereon, although the sunshine of victory seldom shone, he ever displayed, under the clouds of misfortune and ill-success, the brightest attributes of a British boxer, science, courage, self-possession, and honesty. “Some one must lose,” as a practical philosopher has remarked, and the mischances of war fell often and heavily on poor Harry. ”

“ Gentlemen, after what I have done for the pugilists belonging to the prize ring, I do say they have not used me well upon this occasion; in fact, the principal men have deserted me in toto. Gentlemen, I think I have a right to call myself the father of the science; for it is well known that prize fighting lay dormant for several years after the time of Broughton and Slack. It was myself and Humphries that revived it in our three contests for superiority, and the science of pugilism has been highly patronised ever since. (Hear, hear, from some old amateurs.) ”

“ Not so in modern times; for while the quantum of punishment in the end must decide the question of victory or defeat, yet the true British boxer gains most applause by the degree of science which he displays in defending his own person, while with quickness and precision he returns the intended compliments of his antagonist, and like a skilful chess-player, takes advantage of every opening which chance presents, thereby illustrating the value of coolness and self-possession at the moment when danger is most imminent. ”

“ Under a mistaken impulse, after having successfully triumphed over such formidable opponents as Paddington Jones, Bartholomew, Gamble, Berks, and Firby, his well gained fame expired. It was evident, independent of the great disadvantage which Belcher unhappily sustained in the loss of an eye, that neither his strength nor constitution at this time could enable him to encounter with any chance of success, an opponent possessing such an astonishing degree of skill, agility, wind, muscular power, and, in short, every requisite that the most theoretic mind could suggest for a pugilist. ”