broken-head or a belly-full!
BUCKHORSE, and several other Pugilists, will show the Art of Boxing.
To conclude
With a GRAND PARADE by the Valiant FIG, who will exhibit his knowledge in various
Combats—with the Foil, Back-sword, Cudgel, and Fist.
To begin each Day at Twelve o’clock, and close at Ten.
Vivat Rex.
N.B. The Booth is fitted up in a most commodious manner, for the better reception of Gentlemen, &c. &c.
Besides this nobly patronised amphitheatre of Fig, there were several booths and rings strongly supported. That in Smithfield, we have it upon good authority, was presided over by one “Mr. Andrew Johnson,” asserted to be an uncle of the great lexicographer,[[15]] There was also that in Moorfields, called at times “the booth,” at others “the ring.” The “ring” was kept by an eccentric character known as “Old Vinegar,” the “booth” by Rimmington, whose sobriquet was “Long Charles.” This, it appears, had a curious emblazonment,—a skull and cross-bones on a black ground, inscribed “Death or Victory.” During the high tide of Fig’s prosperity (1733) occurred the battle between Bob Whitaker and the Venetian Gondolier, narrated under the head of “Whitaker.”
Let it not be thought that Fig, among his many antagonists, was without a rival. Sutton, the Gravesend Pipemaker, already mentioned, publicly dared the mighty Fig to the combat, and met him with alternate success, till a third trial “proved the fact” of Fig’s superiority. These contests, though given in all the “Chronologies” and “Histories” of the Ring, were neither more nor less than cudgel-matches, as will be seen by the subjoined contemporary verses by Dr. John Byrom. They are printed in “Dodsley’s Collection,” vol. vi., p. 312, under the title of—