“I can’t see my man, your Highness. I am blind—not beat. Only put me in front of him and he’ll not win yet.”
But Slack dashed in again and Broughton could not ward off a blow. Still strong, quite unbeaten in the literal sense of the word, he had to give in. It was an accident in the game and yet it was a part of the game. The whole fight was over in fourteen minutes.
In order to compare those days with these, it is interesting to know that tickets for the Amphitheatre on this occasion cost a guinea and a half, whilst the money taken at the door besides fetched £150. Slack, as winner, was given the “produce of the house,” which in all amounted to £600. When we have in mind the difference in the value of money then and now, we must realise that even in the early days of the Prize-Ring a successful boxer stood to win a considerable sum. The chief difference in his earning capacity lay in the fact that bare-knuckle fights were necessarily less frequent than the softer encounters of to-day. Nor was the sport widely popular at that time, the patrons and spectators being chiefly confined to publicans and other good sinners.
CHAPTER II
TOM JOHNSON AND ISAAC PERRINS
It is character and knowledge of character, which, together with strength and skill, makes boxing champions to-day. And we are inclined to think that the psychological element in fighting came in only within the day of gloves, and rather late in that day. Certainly the old records of the early Prize-Ring are of brawn and stamina, skill and courage rather than of forethought and acutely reasoned generalship, but there are exceptions, and one of the most noteworthy is that of Tom Johnson.
Johnson (whose real name was Jackling) was a Derby man, who came to London as a lad, and worked as a corn porter at Old Swan Stairs. For a heavyweight champion he was very small—short, rather: for he stood but 5 feet 9 inches. He must, however, have been made like a barrel, for he weighed 14 stone, and the girth of his chest was enormous. A story is told of how Johnson when his mate fell sick carried two sacks of corn at each journey up the steep ascent from the riverside and paid the man his money, so that the boxer’s amazing strength earned the double wage.
The best known and probably the fiercest of Johnson’s battles was with Isaac Perrins, who stood 6 feet 2 inches and weighed 17 stone. It is not probable that boxers trained very vigorously in those early days, so that the weights may be misleading. Contemporary prints, however, certainly give the impression of men in hard condition. Perrins, a Birmingham man, is said to have lifted 8 cwt. of iron into a wagon without effort.
The fight took place at Banbury in Oxfordshire on October 22, 1789. The men fought (it is interesting to know when we think of the prizes of the present day) for 250 guineas. Two-thirds of the door money went to the winner, one-third to the loser. The men fought on a turfed stage raised five feet above the ground.
Johnson’s method had always been to play a waiting game, to try to understand his opponent’s temperament, to take no avoidable risks. He knew that he was a good stayer, so he was accustomed to use his feet and to keep out of distance until he had sized up his man. He would always make rather a long but certain job of a fight than a quick but hazardous one.