The second round was rather different. Jem still did all the leading and Tom fought on the retreat, but this time he kept his head and stopped most of the quick blows that Jem aimed at him. His guard had greatly improved, he used both his head and his feet with coolness and sound judgment. It is true that he was somewhat staggered by one very hard hit that Jem drove home over his guard, but that led the weaker man to an act of foolishness such as had helped towards his downfall in their previous fight. Jem dashed in and instead of raining blows to complete his man’s discomfiture, he closed and wrestled with him and finally threw him, which, as we have seen, did more to exhaust the temporary victor than his opponent. Not even the betting by unintelligent spectators was affected. Indeed Captain Barclay promptly tried to lay 4-1 on Cribb, but found no takers even at that price.
And yet for many rounds Belcher boxed with great skill, though quite early in the fight it was noticed that his wind was poor, and in any sharp rally he had to fight for his breath. Time after time Cribb found himself able to get close and throw him. But it was Cribb once more who showed the severer signs of punishment: his face was already swollen and he bled profusely from several cuts made by Jem’s sharp knuckles. Again and again Cribb was out-boxed, but what was science against a man whose mighty strength could ignore blows? Belcher was indeed and once again beating himself. His wind was gone, his breath came in feverish gasps, he grew slower and more feeble. In the eighth round he tried to get away from his man to the side of the ring in order to get his breath, but Cribb followed him quickly to the ropes, and Jem had to fight again. True, he hit Cribb several times, but the sting was gone from him, and presently the champion closed and they both fell.
And now Cribb refused to retreat any more. He stood up and walked into Jem, planting terrible blows, chiefly upon his body, guarding the counters, closing and hurling the lighter man upon the ground. He was confident and happy now. By the eleventh round he knew that he could not lose. And yet Belcher fought on with that amazing persistence, that flickering hope against hope, that glorious courage which in like case to-day, as then, you will often hear called folly. Jem Belcher was beaten then, but he went on till the thirty-first round with a gallantry that endures as an example to this day. Once again his knuckles were driven up and the skin upon them was all torn away. There is no possible doubt but that if Jem had been his old self Cribb could not have beaten him. But that is an unprofitable line of argument.
Belcher never entered the ring again. This battle, though it had lasted only forty minutes, still further reduced his strength. And immediately afterwards he was sentenced to a month in jail for this “breach of the peace.” There he caught a severe chill from which he never recovered. His lungs had always been delicate, and he died eighteen months later at the age of thirty, one of the greatest athletic heroes this country has ever known.
CHAPTER VIII
TOM CRIBB AND MOLINEUX
With those whose charity begins—and ends—at the farthest possible point from home, with those who, to be more particular, born of British blood, cannot speak of the British Lion without referring to mange, who never refer to British traditions or institutions without a sneer, the present writer has little patience. It is necessary to say that at some point in this chronicle in order to avoid misunderstanding. Tutored by Pierce Egan, Borrow, and other and later writers, we are apt to lose all sense of perspective in regarding that one-time wholly British institution, the Prize-Ring. Further, other sources of enlightenment, and especially our schoolmasters, have blinded us to any flaw in the tradition of British Fair Play, the love of which, as already said, is an acquired and not an inherent virtue. And if in this and other chapters some account is given of events where the love of fair play was conspicuously lacking, and which perhaps tend to show that a great tradition can be, after all, but a great superstition, that will not, I trust, be taken as evidence of the writer’s anti-English proclivities. At this time of day, the truth, so far as one can discover it, can do no harm—if indeed it ever can. And with that much by way of explanation and warning, we proceed to some account of the two immortal battles between Cribb and Molineux, the black.
The history of the Nigger in Boxing has yet to be fully explored. From the time of Bill Richmond and Molineux (the first black boxers whose names have come down to us) till the time of Jack Johnson, negroes in this country have fought, with certain exceptions, under the severe handicap of unpopularity. Without entering too deeply into the Colour question, we may say that this unpopularity comes also from tradition. The vast majority of negro boxers had been slaves or the descendants of slaves. In early days and in the popular imagination they were savages, or almost savages. Also it was recognised from the first that the African negro and his descendants in the West Indies and America were harder-headed than white men, less sensitive about the face and jaw; most black boxers can take without pain or trouble a smashing which would cause the collapse of a white man. Occasionally this is balanced by the nigger’s weakness in the stomach—but, one thing with another, the white man is at a disadvantage. But physical inequality is not the only point of difference. Niggers are usually children in temperament, with the children’s bad points as well as their good ones. The black man’s head is easily turned, and when his personal and physical success over a white man is manifest he generally behaves like the worst kind of spoiled child. In extreme cases his overwhelming sense of triumph knows no bounds at all, and he turns from a primitive man into a fiend. His insolence is appalling. When the black is in this condition ignorant white men lose their heads, their betters are coldly disgusted. There have been exceptions, the most notable of whom was Peter Jackson, whose exploits will be found in the second part of this book. Peter Jackson was a thoroughly good fellow. As a rule, however, it is far better that negroes, if fight they must, should fight amongst themselves. No crowd is ever big-hearted enough, or “sporting” enough, to regard an encounter between white and black with a purely sporting interest.
Thomas Molineux was born of slave parents in the State of Virginia. He himself had been legally freed, and he came over to England, without friends, with the idea of earning a living with his fists. “Thormanby” (the pen name of the late W. Wilmott Dixon) tells us that he had been in the service, in America, of Mr. Pinckney, subsequently United States Ambassador at the Court of St. James’s; and he was a good friend to the lonely black on his arrival in London. Molineux put himself in the hands of Bill Richmond, a fellow negro who had been taken into the service of the Duke of Northumberland when that nobleman was campaigning in America, and, later, educated at his expense and by him set up as a carpenter. Richmond appears to have been a very well-behaved fellow, and at the time of Molineux’s arrival was keeping an inn in the West End of London.
By all that is fair, even in love and war, Molineux should have won the first of the two battles he fought with Tom Cribb. He was aiming high, for his conquests, previous to his challenging the champion, were few and insignificant. However, Tom could do no less than accept, though he underrated the black: and a match was made for £200 a side. The place chosen was Copthall Common, near East Grinstead, in Sussex, and the day December 10th, 1810. Vast numbers of people came down from London to see the fight, travelling through a downpour of rain which made the ring into a mere pool of mud. Cribb was seconded by John Gulley and Joe Ward, and Molineux by Bill Richmond and Paddington Jones. “Time” was kept by Sir Thomas Apreece.