[103]. See Baldwin (Caleb), Appendix to Period III.
[104]. This is the first distinct notice we find of administering the “upper-cut;” the most effective blow in a rally, most difficult to guard against, yet so generally missed by the less-skilled boxer. The “chopper,” or downward blow, of which our forefathers talked, can only be administered to an incapable off his guard, or a “chopping-block.”—Ed.
[105]. “Pancratia,” p. 237.
[106]. “Boxiana” (vol. i., p. 323), and the Chronologies, say at “Moulsey Hurst.” This is from the contemporary account.
[107]. As in the interval between these two battles, Mr. Fletcher Reid, a great patron and backer of the Belchers, paid the “debt of nature,” this seems the right place for a brief obituary notice which we find in the journals:—“On Thursday morning, January the 24th (1807), died, at Shepperton, Surrey, where he had resided for the last two years, Mr. Fletcher Reid, well-known in the sporting world, particularly as one of the greatest patrons of gymnastic genius. The evening preceding he had spent jovially amongst some select companions, and retired to rest at rather a late hour. In the morning his servant found him dead. Mr. Fletcher Reid was a native of Dundee, in Scotland, near to which he had succeeded to estates, by the death of his mother, which afflicting intelligence he had received only two days previous to his decease. He left a wife and two children, who for some time past had resided with his mother.” The following lines, rather questionable in taste, appeared in a monthly publication some time afterwards:—
“In the still of the night, Death to Shepperton went,
And there catching poor Fletcher asleep,
He into his wind such a finisher sent,
That no longer ‘the time’ could he keep.
“Thus forced to give in, we his fate must lament,