On the 13th of November in the same year (1827) Jem a second time met Ned Neale, but after a hard battle of forty-three rounds, occupying forty-six minutes, had again to succumb to the conquering arm of the Streatham Youth. (See Life of Neale, ante, Chapter V., p. 310.)
This was Jem’s last appearance as a principal within the ropes of the P. R. As a second, a backer, and a demonstrator of the art, the Press and the sporting public never lost sight of him. His house, the “Queen’s Head,” Windmill Street, Haymarket, which he kept for some years, was the resort of all lovers of jolly companionship, and those who wished to keep themselves au courant to all sports of the ring.
Jem’s Master of the Ceremonies at his sparring soirées was for some time the accomplished light weight Owen Swift; and many an M.P. slipped away from St. Stephen’s, and many a smart guardsman from a Belgravian dinner-party, to give a look in at Jolly Jem’s snuggery; an inner sanctum, communicating with the sparring-room, and set apart for “those I call gentlemen,” as Jem emphatically phrased it. The inscription over the mantelpiece of this room, from the pen of “Chief Baron Nicholson,” was appropriate:—
“Scorning all treacherous feud and deadly strife,
The dark stiletto and the murderous knife,
We boast a science sprung from manly pride,
Linked with true courage and to health allied—
A noble pastime, void of vain pretence—
The fine old English art of self-defence.”
In vain did mere playmen, or “calico swells,” attempt to gain a footing in Jem’s “private room.” Jem instinctively detected the pretender. “There’s just as much difference in the breed of men as there is in the breed of horses,” he would say. “I read that fellow in a minute; the club-room’s his place.”