These defeats, greatly due to obstinate violence and ungovernable temper, seem to have induced some rash challenges to Paddock. In March, 1851, Jack Grant was hastily matched with Paddock for £100, and £5 deposited; but at the next meeting Grant’s backers took second thoughts, and Tom pocketed the £5, as one of the “little fishes,” which are proverbially “sweet.” In June, at an evening at Jem Burn’s, Con Parker (who at that time kept the “Grapes,” in Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell) proposed a battle for £50 a side, to come off July 24th; but on the following Wednesday Master Con’s courage, like Bob Acres’s, “oozed out at his fingers’ ends,” and Paddock pocketed this affront also, and a “fiver.”

Harry Poulson, of Nottingham, a sturdy, game, and resolute man, a trifle over 12st, was now thought good enough to dispute superiority with Paddock, and on the 23rd of September, 1851, the men met at Sedgebrook, near Grantham, for the small stake of £25 a side. This battle, which was lost by Paddock, after a desperate fight of 71 rounds, occupying 95 minutes, will be found under Poulson, in the Appendix to Period VII.

Paddock, who was under a passing cloud, seemed now to be shut out from the front rank, Harry Broome having attained the honours of the belt by beating the Slasher, on the 29th September, 1851. (See Life of Broome, post.) He was, in fact, at this time under articles with his former antagonist, Poulson, for a second trial, and the day fixed for December 16th, 1851. This proved an unfortunate affair for both parties. They met at Cross End, near Belper, Derbyshire, and the deposits being entirely carried out in Nottingham, no reporter from the London Press was on the ground, nor were any of the known patrons of the Ring present. The battle was gallantly contested, and Paddock, avoiding a fault conspicuous on a former occasion, had been most assiduous in his training. As usual, in gatherings where the roughs are predominant as partisans, there was a tedious waste of time in the appointment of a referee: any person of respectability who might have been present being either objected to, or himself objecting to take the thankless and often perilous office. The fight began at a little before one, Paddock gaining “first blood” and “first knock down,” by a delivery on Poulson’s left eye. After the first six rounds, Paddock forced the fighting, and had it nearly all his own way, Poulson’s want of condition telling against him. Eighty-six rounds were fought in 95 minutes, when Paddock was declared the winner amidst the plaudits of his friends.

Poulson was severely punished about the body. Paddock by no means escaped unscathed. Had the fight been conducted in a quiet manner, it would have been an affair which would not have discredited the older days of the Ring; but we regret to say the worst part of our tale remains to be told. The magistrates of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Leicestershire, aware that the fight was likely to come off in one of those counties, had for some days previously been on the look-out to ascertain the place of meeting, but had been put on the wrong scent; consequently, at the commencement of the battle, no efficient force was in attendance to prevent it. After the fight had continued some time, however, Messrs. John and Jedediah Strutt, with Captain Hopkins and another Derbyshire magistrate, arrived, and proceeded to dissolve the assemblage, with no other assistance than that of William Wragg, chief constable of Belper, to enforce their commands. The mob, however, refused to allow interference, when Mr. Jedediah Strutt rode up to the crowd, and ordered them to disperse. Paddock seem inclined to give over, but was told that if he did he would lose the money. The men, therefore, continued fighting, whereupon Mr. Jedediah Strutt attempted to force his way into the ring, for the purpose of reading the Riot Act, and Wragg, single-handed, endeavoured to clear a passage for him. A cry was raised of “Keep them out,” and about fifty roughs pounced upon the superintendent, and beat him savagely with sticks. The injured man was conveyed to Belper, where Mr. Allen and Mr. Lomas, surgeons, by skilful attendance, restored him to consciousness. The fight being concluded, the men set off for Derby, to which place Captain Hopkins had galloped off for assistance, and having obtained the co-operation of the borough-force, he met the combatants as they entered Derby, in different conveyances, with the intention of proceeding by train to Nottingham. Paddock and his second were taken out of a cab, and Poulson was apprehended amidst his friends in a “drag.” When taken, one of Paddock’s first observations was that “If he had won the toss for the choice of place, he would have chosen any place rather than that confounded county;” that he was sorry “the p’liceman was hurt; and he would have given over when the magistrates ordered them to disperse, but he was told that if he did he would lose the money; and, as he had been served so once before, he determined to go on with the fight.”

In this disgraceful riot and violence, we are happy to say, the men and their immediate seconds and backers took no part, as the subjoined letter from an eye-witness fully shows:—

“To the Editor of ‘Bell’s Life in London.’

“Derby, December 24th, 1851.

“Mr. Editor.—​Believing that a few words on the outrages committed at Paddock and Poulson’s fight may not be out of place, I send you the following: At the close of your Pedestrian Intelligence last week you gave some excellent advice to all connected with manly sports, and expressed a hope that those who by their ruffianly conduct thus disgrace the Ring, may receive their full deserts at the hands of the law. Were I the judge to try them, I would transport the whole; indeed, their conduct furnishes the opponents of prize-fighting with weightier arguments than could be found elsewhere. If pugilism, they may say, encourages fair play, and insists on equal strife, how comes it that one man shall be set upon by fifty of its supporters, and ill treated until it is doubtful whether he be dead or alive? But now let me say a word upon the state of the law in general, and the conduct of its instruments in this particular case. The same journal that reports the disturbance at the fight, details also the particulars of a murderous affray among the ‘navvies’ of the South Wales line; and, did we but alter the names of the places and persons, the whole of the latter skirmish might very well pass for a massacre among Malays or cannibals; stabbing, burning, maiming, and bruising—​a dozen nearly dead, perhaps quite so, by this time. Yet I will venture to predict that the perpetrator of these villanies will reap no heavier punishment than would a poor fellow, professed boxer or not, who may have chanced in fair and honourable fight—​such a thing occurring, perhaps, once out of a couple of thousand times—​to have caused the death of his antagonist. Such being the case—​the law looking with equal eyes at a butchery that would disgrace the Caffres, and a combat conducted with all possible fairness—​men have no reason to choose the latter mode of settling their quarrels, but may as well, they think, adopt the method which inflicts the greatest injury on their enemies. Where men get two or three months for ‘knifing’ an opponent, and others get imprisoned for a twelvemonth for seconding or being present at a prize fight—​although no harm may be done beyond the breach of our Sovereign Lady’s peace—​it does not require a prophet or a Solomon to tell us to what state of things such a course must lead among the lower orders of people. And now I must ask, in the name of common sense, what the magistrates who interfered at Paddock’s fight expected? I would as lieve venture among a pack of wolves, as go single-handed to thwart a mob of midland counties roughs. Had the officer died, his death would have been owing to sheer foolhardiness, or the obstinacy of those who urged him on. I have seen hundreds of men, more than once, quietly disperse at the order of a magistrate, though he was quite alone, unsupported by even a single officer. So it ought to be, so I hope it will be, and so it must be, if pugilists hope that the next generation may know anything of their doings, except by tradition. Allow me to add that none but the ‘roughs’ took part in the brutal assault on the constable, Wragg. Yours, &c.,

“LYDON.”

The upshot of this regretable riot was that Paddock and Poulson, being by law responsible as “principals,” were sentenced each, in March, 1852, to ten months’ imprisonment with hard labour.