With the close of 1828 came our hero’s retirement from the P. R., and it is to be regretted that mine host of the “Rose and Crown”—for he had now settled down as Boniface in the pleasant village of Norwood, then celebrated for its rurality and gipsy encampments—did not adhere to this resolution; but it was not to be. Some taunting words of a very “fast” young boxer, Young Dutch Sam, led to Neale’s acceptance of his challenge for £100 a-side. The fight came off at Ludlow, April 7th, 1829, and after a gallant struggle of seventy-one rounds, in one hour and forty-one minutes, Neale succumbed to his youthful and scientific opponent. Dissatisfied with the issue, Neale lost no time in challenging Young Sam to a second encounter, which, after an arrest of Neale and a postponement, came off near Bumpstead, in Essex, on the 18th of January, 1831. Here the result was again defeat, this time in fifty-two minutes and fourteen rounds. It was clear that Neale’s best days had gone by.
Prompted by courage rather than prudence, he made yet one more appearance in the P. R. It was with an early opponent, Tom Gaynor (See Life of Gaynor, Chap. IX., post), and here again he had miscalculated his energies, succumbing after a gallant battle of 111 minutes, during which forty-five rounds were contested.
The fistic career of Ned Neale thus closed, as with so many other athletes, in defeat. Yet he retired with his laurels unsullied, his character for courage and honesty unsmirched; and respected by all who knew him, he shuffled off “this mortal coil” at the “Rose and Crown,” Norwood, near the place of his birth, on the 15th of November, 1846.
CHAPTER VI.
JEM BURN (“MY NEVVY”)—1824–1827.
The sobriquet “My Nevvy” with old ring-goers long survived the sponsor (Uncle Ben), who first bestowed it upon his protégé on introducing Jem Burn to the P. R., an event which took place in 1824.
Jem first saw the light at Darlington, in the county of Durham, twenty years previous—namely, on the 15th March, 1804—and was in due time apprenticed to a skinman (vulgo, a “skiver”) at Newcastle-on-Tyne. We need not say that Jem came of a fighting stock—both his uncles, “Big Bob” and “Ben” being well known within and without the twenty-four-foot roped square miscalled the “ring;” the latter at this period being the popular host of the “Rising Sun,” in Windmill Street, Piccadilly, in after years the domicile of “Jolly Jem” himself.
Now the fame of his muscular relatives had reached the remote northern residence of Jem, and, like Norval, “he had read of battles, and he longed to follow to the field some warlike chief;” so, having tried “his ’prentice han’” on a north country bruiser of some local fame, hight Gibson, he, like other aspiring spirits, looked towards the great Metropolis for a wider field for the exercise of his talents.
It is recorded that Jem’s battle with Gibson was a severe one, occupying one hour and twenty minutes; and that in another bout with a boxer named Jackson, a resolute fellow, Jem, in a two hours’ encounter, displayed such quickness and ability as to spread his fame throughout the district.
Brown, a twelve stone wrestler, with some fistic pretensions, challenged “Young Skiver,” as his comrades then called him. In twenty-five minutes he found out his mistake, retiring from the ring with second honours, while Jem was comparatively without a mark.
As a matter of course, on his arrival in London Jem made his way to Uncle Ben’s, where he was received with a hearty welcome, had the run of a well-stocked larder, and was soon hailed as a “morning star” of the first magnitude, and fit herald of new glories to the “Rising Sun.”