Both men were now nearly exhausted, but Deaf Burke, urged by his seconds, went in with all his remaining strength and punished Byrne severely. In the forty-ninth round the Irishman came to grass very weak, and Burke became favourite again. And so it went on till the ninety-ninth round, now one and now the other having some slight advantage. Once, his supporters seeing Burke down and apparently unconscious hailed Byrne as the winner: but at the call of time, Dick Curtis, his second, brought Burke up to the scratch, where he stood with indomitable pluck, ready to go on fighting. Byrne’s chances had finally gone when both his hands became so “puffed” that he was unable to strike a single blow which could hurt his opponent, let alone knock him out.
Later on, the supporters of the men on either side, apart from their seconds, crowded round them and sprinkled water on them during the progress of the rounds, and fanned them with their hats. And the ring was the centre of pandemonium. The crowd yelled and yelled again for one or other, Burke or Byrne. What cared they that the men had long ago fought themselves to exhaustion, so long as the technical decision was obtained, the decision which would decide the bets?
And there are men now who complain that we are a softened race because we don’t allow this sort of thing....
Burke remained slightly the stronger. Latterly he seldom “hit” except with his open hand, but it was enough to send his antagonist down. And yet in the ninety-first round Byrne managed to trip him and fall on him, so that once again the Irishman’s chances were favoured. Then Burke, answering the curses and the cheers, managed to knock Byrne down rather harder than usual. And that was the last change. After that Byrne was carried to the scratch virtually insensible, literally dazed. He could just stand unsupported long enough for Burke to put out his hand and topple him over. He made pitiful efforts to put out his left to stop the “Deaf ’un.” But it was of no use. At last he fell unconscious on the grass, and Tom Spring and Ward with all their skill—sousing him with water, forcing brandy between his mutilated lips, biting his ears—could not bring him round. And half of the crowd deliriously cheered Deaf Burke as Champion of England.
Two days after this Simon Byrne died. The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter against Burke, as “principal in the first degree,” and the four seconds, together with the umpires and the referee, as “principals in the second degree.”
These men were tried at the Hertford Assizes, and on the surgeon’s evidence acquitted. The cause of death was the congestion of blood in the brain. The surgeon also gave the opinion that the intense disappointment of losing the fight lessened his chances of recovery. When he regained consciousness, Byrne believed that he would die; and this very fact, aided by his way of living “out of training,” no doubt aggravated his condition.
This is probably true: but the umpires and the referee deserved the most abusive censure.
Before the trial the sum of £262 was collected for Byrne’s widow: but when the trial was safely and satisfactorily over, one hundred guineas were subscribed in order to present a service of plate to the editor of Bell’s Life, “as a token of the respect in which he was held, not only by the men who had recently undergone their trial, and whose defence he had conducted, but also for the manner in which he had invariably conducted the cause of fair play....”