OLD-TIME PUGILISM

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3278, 12 March 1931, Page 7

OLD-TIME PUGILISM

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. Discussing the question of how and why bare-fist pugilism died, Trevor Wignall says, in the London Daily Express, that he thinks the best answer to it may be found in Bernard Shaw’s preface to his novel ‘‘Cashel Byron’s Profession.” Bernard Shaw advanced the opinion that knuckle fighting lived by its intolerable tediousness. Just about 100 years ago prizfighting was undoubtedly a beastly affair, continues Wignall. Fatalities were common, and as a consequence the authorities imposed very harsh sentences when they were given the opportunity. In 1829 a man named Davies fought another known as Wink worth on Hampstead Heath, The contest lasted 58 rounds, and the stakes were £5 a side. After one hour and five minutes of sheer cruelty Winkworth collapsed and later died. Davies was arrested, tried, and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment. That, from his point of view, was bad enough, but his two seconds, men named Finn and Driscoll, fared far worse. They were transported for life. Between 1830 and N| 1840 disputes and riots were of frequent occurrence, but one of the first indictments on this score was at Bedford Assizes in 1841. The two pugilists concerned were Dick Cain, of Leicester, and Edward Adams, of Nottingham. Indicted with them, however, were Lord Chetwynd, R. Maley, Deaf Burke, Owen Swift, Mark Cross, Joseph Goodwyn, Thomas Brown, George Durham, Edward Dawkes and James Walters. The case created considerable interest but in the end the indictment was removed at the instance of Lord Chetwynd by certiorari to the Court of Queen’s Bench. Cain and Adams and all the others pleaded guilty, but no sentences were passed. That may have been because fighting had become an unsavoury, hole-and-corner business, which meant that reliable evidence was difficult to obtain.

Owen Swift, a remarkable lightweight, was often in trouble. In 1834 he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for taking part in a fight that was fatal to his opponent, A. Noon. Four years later he had the misfortune to kill another man named Phelps, who was also known as Brighton Bill. Swift immediately fled to France, where he was arrested for fighting Jack Adams, who must have been one of the first Englishmen to open a school of boxing in Paris. Adams was under the patronage of Lord Henry Seymour, the founder of the French Jockey Club, but who was more renowned for his eccentricities.

Before he stepped up to Adams Swift was given a preliminary bout with Jules Michod, a professor of la savate. In the opening moment the Frenchman kicked out, but Swift, with uncanny agility—he must have been the Jimmy Wilde of his day—hopped out of l’ange, and then practically knocked out his antagonist by striking him on the sole of the right foot. Almost every person present was a nobleman, and the keepers of the Bois de Boulogne had been heavily bi-ibed not to interfere. Many of them, indeed, in thenquaint uniforms, stood at the ringside. In the second round Adams claimed a foul, but after the umpires had gone into consultation they decided that the fight should go on. Adams refused, and the contest fizzled out.

Some months later the men were rematched, but as the Paris newspapers were now denouncing- what they called “this brutal British sport,” it was not found easy to agree on a suitable spot. Eventually a stretch of ground near the mansion of the Duke of Hamilton was selected, and Bendig’o and Deaf Burke were specially imported tk> act as seconds. Swift won after an hour and 15 minutes, but by then the newspapers were hot on the trail of all connected with the affair. Swift, already a fugitive from justice, surrendered to the police, and the charge levelled against him was that he had inflictd wounds “occasioning an incapacity to labour for 20 days.” Swift was given 13 months’ imprisonment, but without waste of time he escaped disguised as a woman, and on arrival in England walked straight into a police station and gave himself up for the manslaughter of Phelps. He was acquitted, but never fought again.

This rather extraordinary man retired at the age of 25, and for the next 30 years was the landlord of the Horseshoe Tavern, in Tichborne Street, London, which was one of the most popular sporting resorts in the country. A very heavy gambler, Swift, after years of prosperity, ended his days in the Licensed Victuallers’ Asylum, where Jem Ward was also an inmate. Swift was 76 when he died. His days as a cham pion fighter coincided with the period when pugilism was at its lowest ebb, and it is of interest to mention that the Society of Mutual Improvement held a meeting to discuss this question: ::Ought the magistracy of England to be considered worthy of censure for a negligent execution of

the laws against puglifistic combats or of approbation for their prudence in not too violently opposing public taste and winking- at what affords much amusement and keeps up the spirit and courage of the country?” The vote, when taken, was in favour of those magistrates who winked, but it needs to be added that there were many fighters who preferred to flee the country rather than be arraigned for murder or manslaughter. Quite recently I was seriously informed that British pugilism would not improve until we made a return to knuckle-fighting. But does anyone want to see men bled on the floor of a ring, or to feast his eyes on gouging or cross-buttocking? Most certainly I do not!