There is, indeed, “many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.” The very week in which Alec Keene penned his friendly note, Paddock was laid prostrate by a severe attack of rheumatic fever, his state being declared dangerous when admitted to the Westminster Hospital, on the recommendation of the medical man called in.
And here we must interpose what a parsonic biographer would call a “refreshing” incident, showing that there is that “touch of nature which makes the whole world kin” even in the hearts of “those degraded wretches who engage in brutal prize-fights” (as we heard a very Reverend Dean, the Vicar of Cheltenham, charitably characterise this very pugilist and his confrères). Tom Sayers called in Norfolk Street, in the next week, to accept Paddock’s challenge and cover his deposit, when he was informed of his namesake’s illness. He was himself that very day going North, and he not only expressed his earnest sympathy with his adversary’s affliction, but at once left £5 for his use, with a promise to use his best endeavours to collect a fund among his friends for the same purpose; and he did so. We find no such practical Christian charity among the “refreshing” passages in “the Memoirs” of the vice-suppressing clergyman.
In the October following, Paddock, recovering from his long and painful illness, looked up his friends, and wrote from Brighton (inclosing £10) to say that he was “ready to meet the winner of the fight between Tom Sayers and Bill Benjamin for £200 a side; to come off within four months after the 5th January, 1858,” the fixture for that fight.
The disposal, by the “coming man,” in 1856, of Harry Poulson, in February, 1857, of Aaron Jones, of the Tipton Slasher in June of the same year, and of Bill Benjamin (Bainge), in January, 1856, seemed to have failed to convince “the knowing ones” of even the probability of a 10½ stone beating 12 or 13 stone; so the anti-Sayerites readily backed Paddock to do battle with the “little” champion. Sayers, on hearing that Paddock had a difficulty (he had quarrelled with Alec Keene, his money-finder) in raising the £200 required, showed his accommodating temper by lowering the stake to £150, thus making the total £300 instead of £400. The 15th of June, 1858, was appointed for the battle.
The public interest was intense, and the crowd at London Bridge station on the eventful morning was immense. Paddock never looked better; he was red as a beetroot, and as strong and healthy as if he never had witnessed the sight of “turning off the gas.” He was credited, on the authority of his trainer, with doing fifty miles of walking a day at one period of his training, and weighed exactly 12 stone, at which he was supposed to be at his best. How all these qualifications, backed by perfect confidence unflinching game, and desperate courage, failed in the trial, and he struck his flag to the victorious “Champion,” who, on this day, proved himself the stronger though the lighter man, will be found in the first chapter of the next “Period” of our History.
Once more, and for the last time, our hero appeared in the P.R. This was in combat with the gigantic Sam Hurst, who, in 1860, put forth a claim to the Championship. Hurst, who weighed 15st., and stood 6ft. 2½in., was renowned as a wrestler. Hurst, of whom the reader may know more by a reference to the Memoir of Jem Mace, in a future chapter of the present volume, was, of course, formidable from his strength, weight, and bulk; his boxing pretensions were of a mediocre quality. Paddock lost the battle by a chance blow from the Colossus, in the fifth round, at the end of nine and a half minutes; and thus closed an active, chequered, but not inglorious Ring career as a defeated man.
From this time Paddock no further occupied a position of prominence in pugilistic circles. He had but few of the qualifications necessary to impart the principles or demonstrate the practice of boxing to learners, and except an occasional appearance with the gloves, he was unheard of by the public, until his demise, from a somewhat lingering illness, on the 30th June, 1863.
CHAPTER IX.
HARRY BROOME (CHAMPION).
1843–1856.
Harry Broome, a younger brother of the renowned Johnny, was born in the “hardware town,” which has given so many of its best pugilists to the modern Ring, that Birmingham early rivalled, and afterwards eclipsed, the fame of Bristol as the birthplace of boxers. The subject of this memoir, who first saw the light in 1826, was a mere boy at the time when his elder brother had fought his way to “the topmost round of fortune’s ladder”—Broome’s ultimate victory, that over Bungaree, the Australian, being achieved in April, 1842, when Harry had not yet counted sixteen summers. At that time Johnny had already married, and settled as host of a well-accustomed tavern—to wit, “The Rising Sun,” in Air Street, Piccadilly, where his shrewdness, activity, and enterprise had transformed the short avenue from Piccadilly to Regent Street into a “high change” of sporting; a very Rialto of the Ring, where patrons and practitioners of the Noble Art “most did congregate.” The sparring saloon at “The Rising Sun,” at this period, was the arena for the display of the best fistic talent of the Metropolis; and here, at the age of sixteen, we first saw the aspiring youngster—a lithe, smooth-skinned, active stripling, very boyish in look, standing 5 feet 8 inches, and weighing 9 st. 7 lbs.—put on the mittens, and make a most creditable “private trial” with the well-known Byng Stocks, of Westminster. Stocks, despite his 11 stone and experience, by no means had the best of the mimic mill, though once or twice urged by the delighted “Johnny” “Not to spare the young ’un because he was his brother.” This promising début was followed by several favourable public displays; and within a few months not a few of the best judges were of opinion that, barring all question of breed and blood, a new and formidable aspirant for the middle-weight Championship would be found in Young Broome, when a year or two should have hardened the gristle into bone, and manhood had consolidated the muscle and set the frame of the future gladiator. And so some months rolled on; a glove-fight, in which Harry disposed of Mitchell, a 10-stone outsider, for a £5 note, being a mere coup d’essai, got up by a few aristocratic visitors of “The Rising Sun,” of which Harry was the rising star.