ANECDOTES OF SPORT AND SPORTSMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1855, 10 June 1887, Page 26

AN ECDOTES OF SPORT AND SPORTSMEN.

; (Licensed Victuallers' Gazette.) Though gratitude is a somewhat scarce commodity in this world, a man occasionally (reaps the reward of a, kindly action in an tuiexpected manner. A * certain Captain Osborne, having laid all he possessed, and more to boot, upon Sunning Rein, found himself after that famous Defby day a ruined man. . Two mornings afterwards, as he was •walking^down Regent street, seriously debat ing within himsslf whether he should not go to his rooms, put a pistol to his head, pay his debt to Nature, and let the other creditors look after themselves, a boy accosted him, thrust a note into his hand and disappeared. It was such a dirty scrawl that the Captain was about to throw it away, when the name signed 'struck his attention, and he read as follows: — "Honnerd Sur, — You <?ne did.nae and my missus a good turn, and I vant to do you the same. Runnin' Rein is a himposter, and hevon'tgetthe derby stakes. I noes all. , Buy all the bets you kan on Orlando and you'll make a f 6rtin^ ; but no more at present from your humble servant, A. Simmonds, formerly your helper at Crick." The' Captain, after a moment's thought,' recollected that he had once had a helper of that name in his stables, and had given him a' fiver to get the bailiffs' out of his houses Thinking. there might be something in the tip he started off for Tattersall's and there he heard whispers that determined him to act upon itl > Not losing an hour, he bought up all the Orlando bets he could get hold of— people being, ready to part with them for a song, for anything they* could get, and no doubt wondering how any man could be such a mug as to take them at any price. Every reader will remember the story of the Running Rein fraud, most notorious of turf scandals ; how the horse was proved to be a four-year-old, and Orlando, who had come in second, was declared the winner. " Well, the the upshot was that, instead of blowing his brains out, Captain Osborne pocketed £18,000 ; and you may be sure he did not forget his faithful old servant, who was made comfortable for life. In the days of the Regency sparring exhibitions between lords were almost as common as they are now between Bill Brown and Joe White. .- Lord Mexborough and Fletcher Norton were at one time Jackson's favourite pupils, and so nearly matched that a challenge was given and accepted between the two to try which was the better man. Such a sensation was created by this event that on the afternoon on which it was to come off, Rotten Row was literally deserted by the male sex. Jackson's Rooms, in Bond-street, were crammed like a Drury Lane gallery on a Boxing Night, while the passages, and even the stairs, were crowded with perspiring swells unable to get admission, for it was regarded as a match of the House of Lords against the House of Commons. Both the combatants were light-weights, and splendid boxers, and for a long time victory hung in the balance, for while Mexborough was quicker at the out fighting, Norton was the stronger in the rally ; but strength prevailed at last and my lord was knocked clean over the benches, and amidst the tremendous cheers of the Commons Norton was proclaimed the victor. Grantly Berkely tells us in his memoirs that after a dinner at Crockford's the tables would frequently be put aside and the room converted into an arena, wherein Tom Spring and Owen Swift, and other famous boxers of the day, would amuse the company with a display of their science. At other times the room would be temporarily turned into a cockpit, and a main would be fought by candle light. The following story, the truth of which is vouched for on good authority, is told of a certain sporting baronet and well-known man about town, now living, but whose name, for obvious reasons, is concealed. Not long ago he was taking a trip up the Mediterranean in his yacht, when he was overtaken by one of those sudden • storms so frequent in that " summer sea," and by-and-bye the captain announced that if there was not a change very shortly the little craft must go to pieces. Irrepressible qualms of conscience, as well as of' stomach, siezed upon the doomed rake, and he felt he could not go to Davy Jones' locker until he had unburdened his mind of some of some of his manifold transgressions against matrimony. So notwithstanding the tossing of the barque, he contrived to scrawl upon a sheet of paper how he had invested nearly the whole of his wife's fortune upon the losing horse, though he had hoped, had he lived, to have replaced it by a luckier venture, and how there were a certain Lottie and a Totty he occasionally took tea with, &c. This confession, with a running chorus of " Oh, I'm a miserable sinner," being signed, was put into a bottle directed to his spouse, praying anyone who might pick it up convey it to her, and the bottle was cast into the sea. Scarcely had it disappeared into the billows when i ho f;i v of the gale abated, the clouds broke, and the yacht was able to run into port. He returned home, thought no more about the bottle, laid against the winner, lost more money, and continued to take tea with Lottie and Totty with as secure a conscience as before ; when one morning the footman entered the breakfast room with a bottle in his hand, to which was attached a piece of leather addressed to her ladyship, saying a fisherman had found it somewhere on the South coast, and travelled all the way to London with it. A deadly pallor overspread the cheek of the guilty one, he tried to seize upon the receptacle of his secret, but his wife, observing his manner, held it firmly, drew the cork, extracted the fatal paper, and proceeded to read. The news of her lost fortune made her weep, but when she came to the names of Lottie and Totty, fire dried up her tears, and the guilty rake never had such a bad quarter of an hour in all his life before. Moral: However near your latter end may apparently be, never write confessions that may be proper for your widow to read, but awkward for your wife, as there is no knowing when or how they may turn up to bear witness against you.

In no part of England in the old days was cock fighting more enthusiastically followed, than in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The Newastle Chronicle of a century ago was full of dvertisements bearing upon this favourite

sportj and in one, issue, six, mains ,are;announced, ',' the "aggregate .prizes '„'or, which amounted to." £720. ; Nearly.allthe principal inns had covered pits attached to them, those of earlier times being open. -At first the sports were carried, on at very short intervals during the season, but by degrees the principal attendance was concentrated in the race week, when the fights were introduced under more imposing auspices, the gentlemen of Northumberland appearing as the cdm- 1 petitors of the gentlerden of Durham, Cumberland, or Yorkshire; 'tne' v pastinie being then patronised by the highest personages in the realm. Amongst the, competitors in Newcastle cockpits were the DukejOf Hamilton, Sir Henry Liddel.f General JBeckwith, Mr Fenwick, of By well, &c. In 1790 a main' waa i fought beween the ; Duke of North urn- i berlandand Charles Grey, Esq.. (afterwards Earl Grey), jointly, and Mr Fenwick. 'After the death of Sir Harry Vane, however,, a j great cocker, the sport was little patronised by the gentry. The pit in Newcastle was' usually the centre of, a large room round which seats were ranged, and, with an inner, circle railed off, for bookmakers. Among these about 50 years ago was „one named Sinclair, noted for his extraordinary memory; 1 he never used pen or pencil, never > entered a' bet, yet would give or take the odds 1 30 or 40 times without making the slightest mistake. - The pit men were passionately fond of cocking, aud on pay Saturday there was always a regular tournament got up, for their delectation, and although 'the price of admission was as high as half a crown, the place would be< crammed with eager and interested miners. < Long after the sport was put down by act of , Parliament, mains continued to be fought in spite of law, police, ' and fines, and that not only among the working classes, but among the influential people of .the town. A well-known magistrate, who died only a few years ago, kept' game cocks, and the back portion of his' house being well screened public view, he frequently had a private fight for his own entertainment and that of a select number of friends, amongst the latter being a certain learned judge, who was always delighted to J assist in breaking the law, to' that extent at , least, when on the Northern' circuit. Cock-J ing, however, is dead and gone, even in the . North, though whether it be more cruel than pigeon shooting or hunting a tame deer is, we think, very doubtful. There is a man now living on the Carson river below Dayton, in the State of Virginia, who claims, and justly we should say, to be the strongest ,mari in the world. He is an Italian named Angela Cordelia, aged thirtyeight; he stands sft lOin, aud weighs 1981b; he has had no athletic training, his muscular vigour is inherited, his father, it is said, being more powerful than himself. Although of no unusual size his spinal column is much beyond the usual width, and • his bones and joints are on a similarly large scale. He lifted a man weighing 2001b with the middle finger of his right hand, the man standing with one foot on the floor, his arms outstretched, his hands being grasped by two persons to steady his body;, Cordelia then stooped and placed the third finger of his right hand under the man's foot, and with scarcely any perceptible effort raised him to the height of four feet and deposited him on a table near at hand. Once two powerful men waylaid Cordelia with • intent to thrash him, but he seized 'one in each hand and hammered them' ( together . until life was nearly knocked, out of them.

Punctuality is a virtue, but it was certainly a virtue carried to' excess in the following instance. Sir Thomas Ho'lte, of Aston, who lived in the middle of the seventeenth centuary, was a 1 terrible martinet over his domestics, and particularly prided himself upon the exactness, of time at which his meals were got ready. One day, when he was returning from a hunting excursion with a party of gentlemen who, were to share his hospitality, he made a heavy wager with them that dinner would be ready to the minute he had ordered it. By some mischance, however, the usually scrupulously exact cook was behind time, very much to Sir Thomas' chagrin, who had not only tq dp ..what he hated — wait for his dinner, but disburse a large sum of money as well. To add to his, annoyance, moreover, his guests amused themselves in the tedious interval by. chaffing himnpon his confidence. This so roused the knight's fury that, drawing his sword, he rushed into the kitchen, and ran the poor cook through the body. To this day the Holte family have on their coat-of-arms a bloody hand. , We cull the following from an old newspaper ;— " On Friday, the 21st inst. (1759), as Mr Cuthbert Lambert, youngest son of an eminent physician of Newcastle, was riding along Sandyfordstone lane, his mare took fright, and, running to the bridge, leaped on the battlement, 3|ft high, and from thence made a spring to one side of the burn below, •which measures 45ft, and is 36ft perpendicular. What is mo-t astonishing, and, indeed, remarkably providential, the young gentleman kept close to his seat from the top to the bottom, and escaped with his life. The mare died almost directly, and on examining the body, it was found that all the joints of the back were displaced by the fall."