Copied by Permission from the Original Painting in the possession of Mr. Thomas Belcher.
Published Sept. 23, 1879 by G. Smooten, 150 St. Martins Lane.
What was to be thought of such a man?
Even now, neither Humphries nor his friends were fully satisfied. His tremendous hitting power, especially when directed against Mendoza’s body, was reckoned as not having yet been fully tested. Once let him send home but one smashing right on the Jew’s lower ribs, and he would certainly win.
Accordingly, yet another match was arranged in September of the following year at Doncaster, during (as Pierce Egan phonetically spells it) the Sellinger Cup week. The place chosen was confined on three sides by houses, whilst the fourth was closed by high railings behind which flowed the river Don. Public excitement was very high. Upwards of five hundred tickets of admission to the ground were sold at half a guinea each, whilst a ferryman made a small fortune by taking many hundreds of people over the river to the back of the railings at sixpence a head. These presently smashed down the railings and so gained an unauthorised entry. Having gained their point, however, the crowd behaved well, and settled down to watch the renewed trial of the two fighters in silent expectation.
Again a twenty-four-foot stage had been built at a height of four feet so that all the spectators could get a clear view. At half-past ten in the morning the men appeared, Mendoza immediately following Humphries. Both of them seemed cheerful, confident, and well. Johnson, who had hitherto been Humphries’s second, had deserted and gone over to the opposite camp, his place being taken by John Jackson, who, a few years later, himself became Champion of England. Colonel Hamilton and Sir Thomas Apreece were the umpires, and they mutually agreed upon Mr. Harvey Aston as referee. Odds of 5 to 4 were laid on Mendoza.
Humphries led off with perfect confidence and all his strength, but was met by stout resistance. In a moment they were in each other’s arms, struggling for a fall, and presently they both went over together. Their eagerness was quite undiminished when they came up again, Humphries doing most of the leading and landing from time to time, without, however, giving Mendoza serious trouble. After a time they grew more cautious, blows were fewer but harder, and Mendoza knocked his man down. In the fifth round Humphries made a desperate effort to get in one of his rib-bending body-blows, but failed, and in the rally that followed over-reached himself and fell. And then it was seen that, round by round, Mendoza was improving, scoring more heavily, boxing much better. The odds rose to 10-1 in his favour. Round after round ended by Humphries going down, sometimes from a blow, but more often “from a policy often used in boxing, which perhaps may be considered fair; several times he sank without a blow, which conduct, though contrary to the articles of agreement, was passed unnoticed.”
Judging that conduct on its open merits, we should say that Humphries was a simple coward. But we often too easily and too quickly call people cowards, and even in this instance we have, so to speak, to look again.
The spectators, even in that age of quickly cut and dried opinions, still had a certain degree of confidence in this strange man, for whilst he was actually fighting, though round by round he got the worst of it, there was the same old vigour in his movements, the same readiness to seize an opportunity. The man of poor spirit in the ring is not so much one who cannot stand punishment as one who fails in aggression. Almost he hopes to be knocked out; he can stand up and defend himself, but on his very life he cannot force himself to take chances and attack his opponent.
Again he must have experienced the impotency of inaction. He tried to hit Mendoza, but seldom succeeded. Again, one eye was completely closed so that he could not see from it. His friends, seeing that he had no chance of winning now, begged him to give in. But he refused. And yet he kept falling without a blow. One moment he would make up his mind to be brave, to endure whatever punishment was coming to him, and the next he would fail, and seek respite on the ground. Then again he would stand up and try to fight. For a little while after his friends’ solicitations, he was spurred on to his best endeavours, but it was useless. Mendoza won every round, and at last, dreadfully cut about the head and face, with a mutilated ear and a severe cut over the ribs, Humphries had to give in.