A few days afterwards a correspondent, signing himself “Heavy-weight,” wrote to the Times pointing out that Heenan’s behaviour in the thirty-ninth round was fair by the Rules,[3] though the Rules were quite unnecessarily barbaric. He goes on to show that Heenan’s partisans were in the proportion of one to every ten of Sayers’s, and that the American had not been fairly treated. “If,” he says, “the English party, the stronger, had been anxious that the fight should go on, I think the doctrine of probabilities leads us to suppose that it would have gone on; if the American party, the weaker, fearing their man would be beaten, had wished it to be stopped, I think the same doctrine points out to us that their wishes would not, in all probability, have been gratified.”
And when we remember that the police first appeared on the outskirts of the crowd, just at a time when Sayers was getting a good deal the worst of it, and a very long time before they finally forced their way to the ring-side, and that they did so just at the moment when Sayers was under Heenan’s arm, we are bound to admit the force of “Heavy-weight’s” contention. It is quite possible that Sayers would have won the fight if it had been allowed to continue, but I don’t fancy that his backers thought so.
It is interesting to know that after this battle the editor of The Times received many anonymous contributions to a testimonial for Sayers. The amounts received varied from a shilling’s worth of stamps to notes for £25, and many of the subscribers wrote to say they had never seen a prize-fight, but desired to express their gratification at the splendid courage of the champion in defending the belt.
PART II
GLOVES
CHAPTER I
PETER JACKSON AND FRANK SLAVIN
It is appropriate to begin the second part of this book, which deals with Boxing in its modern sense, with an account of a fight described by all who saw it as the best ever seen. It took place thirty years ago, and things that happened thirty years ago are apt to be, superlatively, the best or the worst according to the point of the story. There seems to be no doubt, at all events, that the encounter between Frank Slavin and Peter Jackson was the best ever seen at the National Sporting Club.
Frank Slavin, as we have seen, was one of those boxers of the transition period who overlapped. He had fought both with bare knuckles and with gloves. Both he and Peter Jackson were Australians, and both claimed the championship of that country. The contest at the National Sporting Club was said to be for the World’s Championship, but that is a phrase which on no occasion means very much. All that matters for our present purpose is that the match was an important one between two fine and evenly matched men.
Peter Jackson has been called the “first black Gentleman.” He was born in the West Indies in 1861, and went as a lad to Australia, where, in Sydney, he was a fellow-pupil with Slavin of Larry Foley, who in turn had sat at the feet of Jem Mace. Indeed, in the past, Slavin had himself given Jackson lessons in boxing. The black had only once been beaten, and in 1891 he had fought a draw of sixty-one rounds with James J. Corbett. In those days an unlimited number of rounds—that is, a fight to a finish—had not been prohibited in all the states of the Union, and this remaining custom of the Prize-Ring was much abused. The battle took place at the California Athletic Club, at San Francisco, for a purse of 10,000 dollars. It was a poor affair. Jackson hit straight, Corbett crocked. But the white man was cleverer than the black at avoiding punishment by clinching at the psychological moment. Often he refused to break away until the hissing of the crowd became a positive menace. For the last fifteen rounds there was no boxing at all. The men were utterly exhausted: Corbett had hurt an arm, two of Jackson’s ribs were broken. The referee at last declared the fight a draw. He might just as well have done so much earlier.