Remarks.—Nothing could possibly be farther from our thoughts or wishes than any attempt to detract from the gallant achievements of Nat Langham in thus maintaining his title as middle-weight champion, and also earning a lasting fame as the only man who ever licked Tom Sayers. Still, in fairness to the beaten man, it must be remembered that Sayers was at that time by no means either so good a boxer nor so strong a man as he became a few years later, when he defeated one big man after another. Moreover, his defeat was palpably owing to his want of condition, in consequence of which his face puffed up and his eyes closed with far less punishment than he could otherwise have taken scatheless. But when all allowances have been made, the fact remains, that the gallant Nat did defeat the otherwise invincible Tom, and thus worthily dosed a pugilistic career, which, like Sayers’s, had only once been clouded by defeat. Nothing could be more deserving of the highest praise and warmest admiration than the cool courage and calculating generalship with which, when he found that the superior strength of his adversary was likely to prove too much for him, he at once adopted the only system of tactics likely to serve him, and deliberately set to work to avert defeat by blinding his opponent. How skilfully he carried this plan into effect we have seen, and it is interesting to remember that Sayers never forgot the lesson he had received, but himself put it into practical effect on the occasion of his fight with Heenan.
Sayers’s gallant stand was duly appreciated by his friends, and upwards of fifty pounds were collected for him in the train during the homeward journey. Immediately he had recovered his eyesight Tom challenged Langham to another trial of skill, but Nat announced his retirement from the Ring; and, further, his opening of the “Cambrian Stores,” Castle Street, Leicester Square, where he decorated a showy lamp, bearing his name and the inscription, “Champion of the Middle-weights.” At this period our hero developed into a publican; for your successful pugilist is a publican in chrysalis, so sure as a caddis shall become a May-fly in due season. Sayers, however, had also become the landlord of the “Bricklayers’ Arms,” in his favourite locality of Camden Town, and demurred to Nat’s lamp and inscription. “Here am I,” said he, “ready for all comers, Nat Langham included. He has been beaten by Harry Orme, who has retired, and I have been beaten by him. As I do not believe myself conquered on my merits, but by inferior condition, I claim the Championship of the Middle-weights.”
The introduction of Harry Orme’s name is irrelevant, as Orme, Aaron Jones (12 stone), Tom Paddock (12 stone), Harry Broome (12 stone), claimed and fought for the actual and unlimited “Championship,” during the interregnum closed by Tom Sayers’s successive disposal of Aaron Jones, Bill Perry (the Tipton Slasher), 13 stone, Bill Benjamin (Bainge), 12 stone, and Tom Paddock. Quitting this point, however, Nat’s reply was conclusive. He had espoused the niece of Ben Caunt, had settled down, and did not see why he should risk all these “hostages given to fortune,” by trusting what Captain Godfrey calls in his sketch of Broughton, “a battle to a waning age.” Langham’s health, too, never robust, was by no means A 1, and he prudently preferred leaving off a winner, as disposing of such a boxer as Tom Sayers was by no means what betting men would call a “safe thing.” He, therefore, in a brief epistle declined Tom’s cartel, and told him he might paint his lamp at the “Bricklayers’ Arms” in any way he chose; meantime that he, Langham, had won the title of Middle-weight Champion and meant to wear it, and certainly should not transfer it from Castle Street to Camden Town; and there the controversy closed.
We should here close the history of Nat Langham’s career in the P.R. but for the regrettable incident of his rescinding his commendable resolution of retirement four years later, in 1857, in the September of which year, owing to some domestic jars with his relative and neighbour, “Big Ben,” the ill-assorted pair met in battle array to decide their fistic merits, also who should forfeit a stake of £100 to the other, and to settle a family feud in which the public could not feel the slightest possible interest. How they did not achieve either of these three results will be found fully set forth in our account of their drawn-battle, in the Life of Caunt, in Chapter II. of the present volume.
Langham, in his later years, was host of the “Mitre” tavern in St. Martin’s Lane, and died at the “Cambrian,” Castle Street, Leicester Square, September 1st, 1871.
[24] Harry Brunton still flourishes (June, 1881), it cannot be said in a “green old age,” at the “Nag’s Head,” Wood Green, a handy house of call in the Green Lanes, near the Alexandra Palace.
[25] See Pugilistica, vol. i., p. 28.