THE SPORTING MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 6, 11 September 1906, Page 8

THE SPORTING MARQUIS OF WATERFORD.

Here is a good story of the cele- | brated Marquis of Waterford, one of the best boxers of his day. When driving in his chariot one day in the neighbourhood of his Irish estate, ■ he observed a very burly and aggres-sive-looking individual strutting a--1 long the high road with a brass ; cock stuck in his hat. The sight was i so curious that the marquis ordered i his coachman to stop, and inquired iof him if he knew who the person | was, and why he wore such a singular decoration. | ‘-Faith, my lord, it’s Tim Brady, i from Belfast, who calls himself the Cock of tho North, and wears that thing in his hat that every one may, know him, and everybody’s frightened of him,” was the reply. I This was quite enough to excite the Marquis’s emulation. “Here, my iman, I want you,” he called out. “So you call yourself the Cock of the North, and everybody's frightened of you," he said, when the bruiser, not in the slightest degree abashed, came up to the carriage door “Now, look here,” taking a fiver . from his pocket, “here’s a five-pound I note. What do you say to have a ; turn up ? If you beat me the note ! is yours ; if I beat you, the cock is mine.”

Mr. Tim Brady was delighted, and, as he stripped, already felt the crisp bit of tissue between his fingers. The Marquis as quickly divested himself of his habiliments, and put (the strictest injunctions upon his servants that they were on no account to interfere.

The pugilist went to work with the intention of making it sharp and short, but got such a floorer lor his precipitation that in the next round he thought it best to go upon a cautious tack. Very soon, however, he discovered that his rough style was no match for that of the Marquis, who had graduated in the most scientific schools of fistic art, and after half a dozen very short rounds Mr. Tim Brady threw up the sponge. With a knife his lordship cut the brass effigy out of the crestfallen bruiser’s hat and put it In his pocket.

“And if I ever hear any more about the Cock of the North,” he said, as he re-entered his carriage, without a scratch, “you may expect to see me, and I’ll give you a bellyful of what I have only given you a flavour of to-day.”