No small portion of the public has taken it for granted that pugilism and blackguardism are synonymous. It is as an antidote to these slanderers that we pen a candid history of the boxers; and taking the general habits of men of humble origin (elevated by their courage and bodily gifts to be the associates of those more fortunate in worldly position), we fearlessly maintain that the best of our boxers present as good samples of honesty, generosity of spirit, goodness of heart and humanity, as an equal number of men of any class of society.
From Samuel Johnson to George Bernard Shaw literary England has had a kindness for the pugilist, although the magistrate has long, and rightly, ruled him out as impossible. Borrow carried his enthusiasm further than any, and no account of him that concentrates attention upon his accomplishment as a distributor of Bibles and ignores his delight in fisticuffs, has any grasp of the real George Borrow. Indeed it may be said, and will be shown in the course of our story, that Borrow entered upon Bible distribution in the spirit of a pugilist rather than that of an evangelist. But to return to Borrow's pugilistic experiences. He claims, as we have seen, occasionally to have put on the gloves with John Thurtell. He describes vividly enough his own conflicts with the Flaming Tinman and with Petulengro. His one heroine, Isopel Berners, had 'Fair Play and Long Melford' as her ideal, 'Long Melford' being the good right-handed blow with which Lavengro conquered the Tinman. Isopel, we remember, had learned in Long Melford Union to 'Fear God and take your own part!'
George Borrow, indeed, was at home with the whole army of prize-fighters, who came down to us like the Roman Cæsars or the Kings of England in a noteworthy procession, their dynasty commencing with James Fig of Thame, who began to reign in 1719, and closing with Tom King, who beat Heenan in 1863, or with Jem Mace, who flourished in a measure until 1872. With what zest must Borrow have followed the account of the greatest battle of all, that between Heenan and Tom Sayers at Farnborough in 1860, when it was said that Parliament had been emptied to patronise a prize-fight; and this although Heenan complained that he had been chased out of eight counties. For by this time, in spite of lordly patronage, pugilism was doomed, and the more harmless boxing had taken its place. 'Pity that corruption should have crept in amongst them,' sighed Lavengro in a memorable passage, in which he also has his pæan of praise for the bruisers of England:
Let no one sneer at the bruisers of England—what were the gladiators of Rome, or the bull-fighters of Spain, in its palmiest days, compared to England's bruisers?[77]
THE FAMILY OF JASPER PETULENGRO
'Jasper' or Ambrose Smith was a very old man when this picture was taken by Mr. Andrew Innes of Dunbar in 1878. In both pictures we see Sanspirella, Jasper's wife, seated and holding a child. We are indebted to Mr. Charles Spence of Dunbar for these interesting groups.
Yes: Borrow was never hard on the bruisers of England, and followed their achievements, it may be said, from his cradle to his grave. His beloved father had brought him up, so to speak, upon memories of one who was champion before George was born—Big Ben Brain of Bristol. Brain, although always called 'Big Ben,' was only 5 feet 10 in. high. He was for years a coal porter at a wharf off the Strand. It was in 1791 that Ben Brain won the championship which placed him upon a pinnacle in the minds of all robust people. The Duke of Hamilton then backed him against the then champion, Tom Johnson, for five hundred guineas. 'Public expectation,' says The Oracle, a contemporary newspaper, 'never was raised so high by any pugilistic contest; great bets were laid, and it is estimated £20,000 was wagered on this occasion.' Ben Brain was the undisputed conqueror, we are told, in eighteen rounds, occupying no more than twenty-one minutes.[78] Brain died in 1794, and all the biographers tell of the piety of his end, so that Borrow's father may have read the Bible to him in his last moments, as Borrow avers,[79] but I very much doubt the accuracy of the following:
Honour to Brain, who four months after the event which I have now narrated was champion of England, having conquered the heroic Johnson. Honour to Brain, who, at the end of other four months, worn out by the dreadful blows which he had received in his manly combats, expired in the arms of my father, who read the Bible to him in his latter moments—Big Ben Brain.