NO FIGHT.Round 1.—Mace would not lead off, but nodded and beckoned to Joe, who, however, declined his invitation and nodded and grinned in return, squaring his elbows and stepping first to right and then to left, in an ungainly manner, but never trusting himself within what Mr. Gladstone calls “a measurable distance” of a knock; Mace, also, politely preserving an interspace in all his manœuvres. As minute after minute dragged on, and it was clear neither man meant to fight, the referee stepped into the ring, and warned the men, unless blows were struck he would declare “a draw.” The announcement was received with the utmost indifference by both the principal performers, who walked about during the discussion, chafing their arms and breasts with their hands, and exchanging recognitions with acquaintances and friends. Again the men faced each other, and again alternately advanced and retreated; fifty minutes, one hour elapsed, and not a blow was struck. Again and again did the referee remonstrate. He might as well have “whistled jigs to a milestone.” At the end of 74 minutes he leaped into the ring for the last time, and amidst the laughter and hisses of the spectators, declared it “a drawn battle;” whereupon the unscathed gladiators shook hands, grinned, and put on their clothes, Mace coolly informing us, that he had “sprained his ankle severely a few days before,” and that “he was not fit to fight;” though how that ensured Goss’s forbearance was left unexplained. So all returned to town—the sheep and their shearers.“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,”and so, in the hope of witnessing a fight at last, Mace signed articles once again for £200, and to ensure that the men should get closer together this time, a ring of 16 feet was agreed upon. In this, on August 6th, 1866, Jem Mace displayed indisputable superiority by giving Master Joe an exemplary beating in 21 rounds, occupying one minute over the half-hour.The bubble of 1866–7 was the appearance of a new “Irish giant,” standing 6 ft. 4½ in., first dubbed O’Baldwin, and afterwards Ned Baldwin—a name familiar to Ring history. Having beaten one George Iles, O’Baldwin claimed the belt, and Mace (who had retired) backed “an Unknown” against him. This “Unknown” Mace afterwards declared to be Joe Goss; but Mace having got into trouble over a battle between Holden and Peter Moore, at Derby, and Joe injuring his shoulder in his Bristol fight with Allen, Mace was allowed (for a consideration) to name Joe Wormald in his stead, and to postpone the fight for a fortnight, and yet farther to Saturday, 23rd April, 1867, so as not to clash with the Two Thousand Guineas Stakes. Will it be believed that 300 persons travelled that morning by the South Eastern Railway to find that “the Giant” had somehow mistaken the terminus, and by a misdirection was sitting in a four-wheeler, doubled up like a pocket-knife, under a dry arch in Tooley Street, while the special steamed off without him, and so Joe Wormald received the £200 forfeit?To console the confiding public, Mace now offered himself to the notice of O’Baldwin on the usual terms, to meet on October 15th, 1867. The£400 was made good, and Jem was ordered from Newmarket, where he was training, to Woodford, Essex, when it was communicated that the officers were after him, and he crossed over into Surrey. Here, at Herne Hill, he was arrested by Sergeant Silverton, of the Metropolitan Police, together with Pooley Mace, his cousin, brought before Sir Thomas Henry, at Bow Street, and duly bound over to keep the peace in sureties of £300. At the examination, Inspector Hannan stated that the tickets were, to his knowledge, sold at two, three, and four guineas. So each man, as we were told next week, “drew his stake,” on the ground of “magisterial interference.” Again Mace had retired, and Joe Wormald being disabled by illness, O’Baldwin was left, like the Giant Blunderbore, “King of the Castle.” The reader has already, in this Memoir, had the opportunity of forming an opinion of the pugilistic pretensions of Sam Hurst, “the Stalybridge Infant.” Yet Sam Hurst was dragged from his obscurity, and it was thought a good thing might be made of thegobemouchesby a Championship fight between the giants! This was, however, too utterly preposterous, and it broke down. In December, 1867, Joe Goss and Wormald were matched, which ended in a forfeit, and Wormald, O’Baldwin, andCo.were announced as departing for America!Here, in 1868, as we learn from the Transatlantic journals, Joe Wormald and the prodigious O’Baldwin were matched “for 2,500 dollars and the Championship of the World.” They met at Lynnfield, Massachusetts, when, after a scramble of ten minutes in a single round, the “sheriff and his merrie men” interfered and stopped further proceedings. Thereafter, we are told, the “stakeholder having ordered Wormald to renew the fight,” and he not complying, that functionary handed the money to “the Irish champion,” a proceeding which, in the words of Lord Dundreary, “no fellah can understand.” After returning for awhile to England, Mace sailed for the Antipodes, and by the latest accounts was a prosperous publican in Melbourne.Our tale is well-nigh told. In 1870, Jem Mace, being in America, met Tom Allen for 2,500 dollars a side. They fought near New Orleans, on May 10th, when Jem polished off the Birmingham bruiser in style in 10 rounds, 44 minutes.As the design of “Pugilistica” is to supply a reliable and honest history of the British Prize Ring and the deeds of its worthies, we shall here drop the story of New World rowdyism. The Ring had finished its career—had died in the country of its birth; its last expiring flicker hadsputtered out, andexit in fumo, exiled for its misdeeds to a land where its true merits and principles never had an existence. Having thus traced it to its ignominious end, we return, for a single chapter, to the doings of Tom King, whom we have already styled “Ultimus Romanorum.”[34]SeePugilistica,vol. i.,p.33,et seq.][35]The career of Joe Goss shows that even in the last days of its degeneracy theP.R.had brave men who would have gone straight, had they not been warped from the direct course of honesty by knaves who sought only to make the pugilist the instrument of their own nefarious ends. Goss’s birthplace was the file-making town of Wolverhampton, on the 16th of August, 1838; and he made hisdébutat the age of twenty-one, in a battle with Jack Rooke, of Birmingham, for £25 a side, on the 20th September, 1859. His defeat of Rooke in 1 hour and 40 minutes, after 64 sharp rounds, was a promising first appearance, seeing that that boxer had recently beaten Tom Lane—brother to the renowned “Hammer” of that ilk. His next match was with Price, of Bilston, a 12 stone man, who has been often confounded with Posh Price, of Birmingham—also, at a subsequent period (1862) beaten by Goss. This battle ended in a forfeit by Goss, he being arrested at the instance of his father when going to scale, November 9th, 1859. Joe was determined not to be baulked, and at a meeting between himself and Price, the latter offering to fight him for £10, as a solace for his disappointment, the money was posted, and the men met on the 10th of February, 1860, near Wolverhampton. Joe’s activity, power of hitting, and fearless style soon brought his opponent down to his own weight; and in the short space of 25 minutes, in which 15 rounds were fought, Price was consummately thrashed. Bodger Crutchley, who was in high esteem for his victories over George Lane, Sam Millard, Bos Tyler, Smith (of Manchester), and who had last fought Posh Price a drawn battle (interrupted by the police), was Joe’s next opponent. They met near Oxford, July 17th, 1860, for £100 a side, when, after a gallant struggle of 120 rounds, lasting 3 hours and 20 minutes, Goss was hailed the victor. On September 24th, 1861, Joe met and defeated Bill Ryall, for £50 a side, in 2 hours 50 minutes, during which 37 tedious and shifty rounds were fought; and on the 11th of February, 1862, Joe a second time faced Bill Ryall for £100 a side (on the Home Circuit), forthree hours and eighteen minutes, when, as neither man could or would finish, the referee declared “a draw.” This brings us to his battle with Mace for £1,000, detailed above. On December 16th, 1863, Goss entered the ring with Ike Baker for £100, whose pretensions Joe disposed of in 27 rounds, lasting 80 minutes, the punishment being all on one side. Joe’s next two matches were defeats by Mace. On March 6th, 1867, Goss was matched for £100 a side with Bill Allen, of Birmingham. This was a remarkable muddle; after fighting 34 rounds in three different rings, time inclusive 1 hour and 54 minutes, darkness came on, and “a draw” was declared. Soon after Allen sailed for America, landing at New York, July 21st.Joe, who considered he had been treated unfairly, and robbed of the fair reward of his milling superiority, followed him, and, notwithstanding his voyage, issued his challenge to Allen on the 8th of April, six days after his arrival. This was promptly accepted, and the match made for 5,000 dollars (£1,000), to be fought for on the 7th of September. We need hardly remind the reader that the Irish newspaper Press of the United States is in the hands of expatriated Irishmen, whose buncombe and bombast is only exceeded by their prejudice and ignorance. These worthies magnified the contest into a battle for “the Championship,” but as Goss had been two and a half times beaten by Mace, and Allen had done nothing in England beyond drawing the stakes in a forfeit with Posh Price, and failed to do the same in his draw with Joe Goss, it would puzzle “a Philadelphia lawyer” to know how this could be a “fight for the Championship of the World,” except of Irish America, to which title they are both welcome. The “Cincinnati Fight” ended by a “foul” blow, Tom Allen hitting Goss when on the ground!Sic transit, &c.][36]We need not say that this gentleman was not the ex-recorder of Brighton, ex-member for Marylebone, and ex-Q.C., who about this period had left this country for the New World.—Ed.[37]SeeVol. I., Preface,pp. viii. and ix.[38]No doubt many of the weak-kneed brethren, the disciples of a flabby, invertebrate pseudo-humanitarianism, will feel surprised, if not scandalised, at this claim of Lord Shaftesbury as a patron of pugilistic practice. His lordship’s Christianity, however, has always been practical, and of the order called “muscular.” Witness his gallant successful efforts to emancipate the poor little white slaves in our factories by his glorious Ten Hours Bill, and other humane legislation—legislation, let it never be forgotten, opposed by John Bright and the Gradgrind social reformers of the doctrinaire and politico-economical kidney. The friend and benefactor of the Street Arab, the Shoe Black, and the founder of Ragged Schools bore outspoken testimony of his admiration of boxing only a few weeks since in a speech at Exeter Hall, at the Young Men’s Christian Association, wherein he recommended sparring with the gloves as a gymnastic exercise of high value, and recalled, at eighty years, the days when he was himself accounted no mean antagonist, and “reckoned a good boxer among those who were judges of the art.” His style was worthy of a Homeric hero—a Nestor of the Ring.[39]Some who remember “old times” and “the Kentish Town match,” may like to hear that on his annual visit to England, in December last, we smoked a pipe and recalled faded scenes and memories over a cheerful glass with “Temperance” Drinkwater; his activity, mental and bodily, being phenomenal for a man in his 77th year.—Ed.[40]The clerical Editor’s “presumption” is equal to his gullability. We have already pointed out that these gentlemen are “two Dromios.”—Ed.
NO FIGHT.Round 1.—Mace would not lead off, but nodded and beckoned to Joe, who, however, declined his invitation and nodded and grinned in return, squaring his elbows and stepping first to right and then to left, in an ungainly manner, but never trusting himself within what Mr. Gladstone calls “a measurable distance” of a knock; Mace, also, politely preserving an interspace in all his manœuvres. As minute after minute dragged on, and it was clear neither man meant to fight, the referee stepped into the ring, and warned the men, unless blows were struck he would declare “a draw.” The announcement was received with the utmost indifference by both the principal performers, who walked about during the discussion, chafing their arms and breasts with their hands, and exchanging recognitions with acquaintances and friends. Again the men faced each other, and again alternately advanced and retreated; fifty minutes, one hour elapsed, and not a blow was struck. Again and again did the referee remonstrate. He might as well have “whistled jigs to a milestone.” At the end of 74 minutes he leaped into the ring for the last time, and amidst the laughter and hisses of the spectators, declared it “a drawn battle;” whereupon the unscathed gladiators shook hands, grinned, and put on their clothes, Mace coolly informing us, that he had “sprained his ankle severely a few days before,” and that “he was not fit to fight;” though how that ensured Goss’s forbearance was left unexplained. So all returned to town—the sheep and their shearers.“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,”
NO FIGHT.
Round 1.—Mace would not lead off, but nodded and beckoned to Joe, who, however, declined his invitation and nodded and grinned in return, squaring his elbows and stepping first to right and then to left, in an ungainly manner, but never trusting himself within what Mr. Gladstone calls “a measurable distance” of a knock; Mace, also, politely preserving an interspace in all his manœuvres. As minute after minute dragged on, and it was clear neither man meant to fight, the referee stepped into the ring, and warned the men, unless blows were struck he would declare “a draw.” The announcement was received with the utmost indifference by both the principal performers, who walked about during the discussion, chafing their arms and breasts with their hands, and exchanging recognitions with acquaintances and friends. Again the men faced each other, and again alternately advanced and retreated; fifty minutes, one hour elapsed, and not a blow was struck. Again and again did the referee remonstrate. He might as well have “whistled jigs to a milestone.” At the end of 74 minutes he leaped into the ring for the last time, and amidst the laughter and hisses of the spectators, declared it “a drawn battle;” whereupon the unscathed gladiators shook hands, grinned, and put on their clothes, Mace coolly informing us, that he had “sprained his ankle severely a few days before,” and that “he was not fit to fight;” though how that ensured Goss’s forbearance was left unexplained. So all returned to town—the sheep and their shearers.
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast,”
and so, in the hope of witnessing a fight at last, Mace signed articles once again for £200, and to ensure that the men should get closer together this time, a ring of 16 feet was agreed upon. In this, on August 6th, 1866, Jem Mace displayed indisputable superiority by giving Master Joe an exemplary beating in 21 rounds, occupying one minute over the half-hour.
The bubble of 1866–7 was the appearance of a new “Irish giant,” standing 6 ft. 4½ in., first dubbed O’Baldwin, and afterwards Ned Baldwin—a name familiar to Ring history. Having beaten one George Iles, O’Baldwin claimed the belt, and Mace (who had retired) backed “an Unknown” against him. This “Unknown” Mace afterwards declared to be Joe Goss; but Mace having got into trouble over a battle between Holden and Peter Moore, at Derby, and Joe injuring his shoulder in his Bristol fight with Allen, Mace was allowed (for a consideration) to name Joe Wormald in his stead, and to postpone the fight for a fortnight, and yet farther to Saturday, 23rd April, 1867, so as not to clash with the Two Thousand Guineas Stakes. Will it be believed that 300 persons travelled that morning by the South Eastern Railway to find that “the Giant” had somehow mistaken the terminus, and by a misdirection was sitting in a four-wheeler, doubled up like a pocket-knife, under a dry arch in Tooley Street, while the special steamed off without him, and so Joe Wormald received the £200 forfeit?
To console the confiding public, Mace now offered himself to the notice of O’Baldwin on the usual terms, to meet on October 15th, 1867. The£400 was made good, and Jem was ordered from Newmarket, where he was training, to Woodford, Essex, when it was communicated that the officers were after him, and he crossed over into Surrey. Here, at Herne Hill, he was arrested by Sergeant Silverton, of the Metropolitan Police, together with Pooley Mace, his cousin, brought before Sir Thomas Henry, at Bow Street, and duly bound over to keep the peace in sureties of £300. At the examination, Inspector Hannan stated that the tickets were, to his knowledge, sold at two, three, and four guineas. So each man, as we were told next week, “drew his stake,” on the ground of “magisterial interference.” Again Mace had retired, and Joe Wormald being disabled by illness, O’Baldwin was left, like the Giant Blunderbore, “King of the Castle.” The reader has already, in this Memoir, had the opportunity of forming an opinion of the pugilistic pretensions of Sam Hurst, “the Stalybridge Infant.” Yet Sam Hurst was dragged from his obscurity, and it was thought a good thing might be made of thegobemouchesby a Championship fight between the giants! This was, however, too utterly preposterous, and it broke down. In December, 1867, Joe Goss and Wormald were matched, which ended in a forfeit, and Wormald, O’Baldwin, andCo.were announced as departing for America!
Here, in 1868, as we learn from the Transatlantic journals, Joe Wormald and the prodigious O’Baldwin were matched “for 2,500 dollars and the Championship of the World.” They met at Lynnfield, Massachusetts, when, after a scramble of ten minutes in a single round, the “sheriff and his merrie men” interfered and stopped further proceedings. Thereafter, we are told, the “stakeholder having ordered Wormald to renew the fight,” and he not complying, that functionary handed the money to “the Irish champion,” a proceeding which, in the words of Lord Dundreary, “no fellah can understand.” After returning for awhile to England, Mace sailed for the Antipodes, and by the latest accounts was a prosperous publican in Melbourne.
Our tale is well-nigh told. In 1870, Jem Mace, being in America, met Tom Allen for 2,500 dollars a side. They fought near New Orleans, on May 10th, when Jem polished off the Birmingham bruiser in style in 10 rounds, 44 minutes.
As the design of “Pugilistica” is to supply a reliable and honest history of the British Prize Ring and the deeds of its worthies, we shall here drop the story of New World rowdyism. The Ring had finished its career—had died in the country of its birth; its last expiring flicker hadsputtered out, andexit in fumo, exiled for its misdeeds to a land where its true merits and principles never had an existence. Having thus traced it to its ignominious end, we return, for a single chapter, to the doings of Tom King, whom we have already styled “Ultimus Romanorum.”
[34]SeePugilistica,vol. i.,p.33,et seq.]
[35]The career of Joe Goss shows that even in the last days of its degeneracy theP.R.had brave men who would have gone straight, had they not been warped from the direct course of honesty by knaves who sought only to make the pugilist the instrument of their own nefarious ends. Goss’s birthplace was the file-making town of Wolverhampton, on the 16th of August, 1838; and he made hisdébutat the age of twenty-one, in a battle with Jack Rooke, of Birmingham, for £25 a side, on the 20th September, 1859. His defeat of Rooke in 1 hour and 40 minutes, after 64 sharp rounds, was a promising first appearance, seeing that that boxer had recently beaten Tom Lane—brother to the renowned “Hammer” of that ilk. His next match was with Price, of Bilston, a 12 stone man, who has been often confounded with Posh Price, of Birmingham—also, at a subsequent period (1862) beaten by Goss. This battle ended in a forfeit by Goss, he being arrested at the instance of his father when going to scale, November 9th, 1859. Joe was determined not to be baulked, and at a meeting between himself and Price, the latter offering to fight him for £10, as a solace for his disappointment, the money was posted, and the men met on the 10th of February, 1860, near Wolverhampton. Joe’s activity, power of hitting, and fearless style soon brought his opponent down to his own weight; and in the short space of 25 minutes, in which 15 rounds were fought, Price was consummately thrashed. Bodger Crutchley, who was in high esteem for his victories over George Lane, Sam Millard, Bos Tyler, Smith (of Manchester), and who had last fought Posh Price a drawn battle (interrupted by the police), was Joe’s next opponent. They met near Oxford, July 17th, 1860, for £100 a side, when, after a gallant struggle of 120 rounds, lasting 3 hours and 20 minutes, Goss was hailed the victor. On September 24th, 1861, Joe met and defeated Bill Ryall, for £50 a side, in 2 hours 50 minutes, during which 37 tedious and shifty rounds were fought; and on the 11th of February, 1862, Joe a second time faced Bill Ryall for £100 a side (on the Home Circuit), forthree hours and eighteen minutes, when, as neither man could or would finish, the referee declared “a draw.” This brings us to his battle with Mace for £1,000, detailed above. On December 16th, 1863, Goss entered the ring with Ike Baker for £100, whose pretensions Joe disposed of in 27 rounds, lasting 80 minutes, the punishment being all on one side. Joe’s next two matches were defeats by Mace. On March 6th, 1867, Goss was matched for £100 a side with Bill Allen, of Birmingham. This was a remarkable muddle; after fighting 34 rounds in three different rings, time inclusive 1 hour and 54 minutes, darkness came on, and “a draw” was declared. Soon after Allen sailed for America, landing at New York, July 21st.Joe, who considered he had been treated unfairly, and robbed of the fair reward of his milling superiority, followed him, and, notwithstanding his voyage, issued his challenge to Allen on the 8th of April, six days after his arrival. This was promptly accepted, and the match made for 5,000 dollars (£1,000), to be fought for on the 7th of September. We need hardly remind the reader that the Irish newspaper Press of the United States is in the hands of expatriated Irishmen, whose buncombe and bombast is only exceeded by their prejudice and ignorance. These worthies magnified the contest into a battle for “the Championship,” but as Goss had been two and a half times beaten by Mace, and Allen had done nothing in England beyond drawing the stakes in a forfeit with Posh Price, and failed to do the same in his draw with Joe Goss, it would puzzle “a Philadelphia lawyer” to know how this could be a “fight for the Championship of the World,” except of Irish America, to which title they are both welcome. The “Cincinnati Fight” ended by a “foul” blow, Tom Allen hitting Goss when on the ground!Sic transit, &c.]
[36]We need not say that this gentleman was not the ex-recorder of Brighton, ex-member for Marylebone, and ex-Q.C., who about this period had left this country for the New World.—Ed.
[37]SeeVol. I., Preface,pp. viii. and ix.
[38]No doubt many of the weak-kneed brethren, the disciples of a flabby, invertebrate pseudo-humanitarianism, will feel surprised, if not scandalised, at this claim of Lord Shaftesbury as a patron of pugilistic practice. His lordship’s Christianity, however, has always been practical, and of the order called “muscular.” Witness his gallant successful efforts to emancipate the poor little white slaves in our factories by his glorious Ten Hours Bill, and other humane legislation—legislation, let it never be forgotten, opposed by John Bright and the Gradgrind social reformers of the doctrinaire and politico-economical kidney. The friend and benefactor of the Street Arab, the Shoe Black, and the founder of Ragged Schools bore outspoken testimony of his admiration of boxing only a few weeks since in a speech at Exeter Hall, at the Young Men’s Christian Association, wherein he recommended sparring with the gloves as a gymnastic exercise of high value, and recalled, at eighty years, the days when he was himself accounted no mean antagonist, and “reckoned a good boxer among those who were judges of the art.” His style was worthy of a Homeric hero—a Nestor of the Ring.
[39]Some who remember “old times” and “the Kentish Town match,” may like to hear that on his annual visit to England, in December last, we smoked a pipe and recalled faded scenes and memories over a cheerful glass with “Temperance” Drinkwater; his activity, mental and bodily, being phenomenal for a man in his 77th year.—Ed.
[40]The clerical Editor’s “presumption” is equal to his gullability. We have already pointed out that these gentlemen are “two Dromios.”—Ed.