41, 42, 43 and last.—King was visibly distressed in the first two of these three final rounds. In the last of these bouts the combatants closed in the middle of the ring, when Mace, who had delivered a heavy thwack on King’s neck, struggled with him for the fall. In going down, King, who was undermost, struck the front of his head with great force on the ground. Tom’s seconds had him in his corner in an instant, as the position was critical. The die was however, cast. “Time!” was called in vain. Mace, who was eagerly watching his opponent’s corner, advanced to the scratch. The referee entered the ring, watch in hand. The eight seconds were counted; but King was still deaf to the call of “Time!” and Mace was hailed the winner, after one hour and eight minutes of rapid fighting on both sides. Scarcely had the fiat gone forth when a posse of police made their appearance, who, to do them justice, seemed glad that the affair was over before their arrival.
Remarks.—The principal point to be noted is the admirable manner in which both the loser and winner fought out this gallant contest. The superiority of Mace as a scientific pugilist alone enabled him to contend with and finally defeat his brave, powerful, and in size and physique formidable antagonist; while to Tom King, the loser, the credit must be awarded of doing all that man could do towards victory, and yielding only to absolute physical incapability to continue the contest. Although, however, the majority were satisfied that the best man won, there was one who entertained the opposite opinion, and that was Tom King himself, as we shall presently see.
In April, 1862, some curiosity was awakened in fistic circles by the return of John Heenan to England, preceded by an annonce in the American newspapers that he had “gone over to fetch the old belt, and to fight Mace, the so-called Champion.” Hereupon Messrs. Moss Phillips and John Gideon waited upon Heenan, on Mace’s behalf, offering to find £500 or £1,000, if needful, to make a match. Heenan repudiated the newspaper buncombe, saying that he had come over with the sole object of fulfilling an engagement with Messrs. Howe and Cushing’s Circus Troupe, and that he had “cut pugilism,” at least for the present. Jem, who was now a London “pub.,” and host of the “King John,” in Holywell Lane, was also on tour with Ginnett’s Circus, while in Bell’s Life he declared his readiness to “meet any man for £1,000, barring neither country, colour, nor weight.” In reply to this, Bob Brettle, still sore from defeat, and, as he declared, “the ungrateful conduct of Mace,” undertook to back “an Unknown” for £200 and the belt against the Champion, and this Mace accepted. Hereupon King came out with a statement that Mace had requested him not to challenge him “at present,” for reasons which he gave, but now, as he had accepted a challenge, he (King) claimed first turn. It may be proper here to remark that King had joined Mace, at his request, in a sparring tour early in 1862, which lends strength to King’s statement. Mace’s backer having offered Brettle’s “Unknown” £25 to indemnify him for his forfeit and expenses, articles were signed at Nat Langham’s, on June 18th, for a fight for £200 a side and the belt, to come off within six months, the precise day not to be divulged until the night before the battle, which was to take place in November or December. How Tom King reversed the former verdict in 21 rounds, occupying 38 minutes, on the 26th November, 1862, may be read in the Memoir of King in the ensuing Chapter.
King having publicly declared his retirement from the Ring, Mace resumed the style of “Champion,” with whatever honours might still attach to that tarnished title.
In December, 1862, Joe Goss, of Wolverhampton, an unbeaten pugilist, weighing 10st. 10lbs., boldly offered himself to the notice of Mace for “any sum from £200 to £500 a side;” and although the Wolverhampton man waived any claim to the belt as the result of the battle, it was said by his friends that they did not see why, if Mace alone barred the way, their man should not claim the trophy. The match, though made in December, 1862, had a most unbusiness-like aspect in some of its details. The time of meeting being named as “nine months after date”—a most suspicious period of gestation for such an affair—September 1st, 1863, was the day. Nor was the amount of stakes less calculated to tax belief, £1,000 being set down in the book; Mace to post £600 to Goss’s £400, of which the Norwich’s man’s backers were to table £330 to Goss’s £220 at the final deposit.
Match-making, at this time, appears to have got “considerably mixed.” In May and June, Bill Ryall, of Birmingham, a twelve-stone man, “seeing that Goss, though articled to fight Mace, did not pretend to the Championship,” offered himself for “the belt and £200 a side, to the notice of the Norwich hero,” after he had disposed of Goss. Mace assented, and articles were signed, but before the decision of the affair now under notice. Ryall’s friends appear to have repented of their rash engagement, and forfeited the £25 or £30 down, as the penalty of their indiscretion. The Brettle party’s choice of Ryall as the man to lower the pretensions of Mace will seem the more surprising when we state that Goss had beaten Ryall on September 24th, 1860, and had fought him to a stand-still in a drawn battle for £100, February 11th, 1862. We will now return from this brief digression to the first encounter of Mace and Gross.[35]
On the making good of the last deposit of £330 to £220, and the announcement that it was duly “banked” in the hands of the Editor of Bell’s Life, the almost dormant interest of many of the incredulous was awakened, and crowds of anxious West End inquirers thronged to the “Mitre” (Nat had shifted from the “Cambrian”), the “Three Tuns,” the “Horseshoe,” the “Rising Sun,” the “Queen’s Head,” and the “Blue Boar’s Head;” while the East Enders were as eager in their endeavours to obtain the “straight tip” by looking in at Harry Orme’s, Joe Rowe’s, Jemmy Welsh’s, Jem Cross’s, Jem Ward’s, Billy Richardson’s, and the Champion’s own crib in Holywell Lane, Whitechapel.
Mr. Tupper having won the toss for Goss, the men went to scale at his house, the “Greyhound,” Waterloo Road, when both were found within the stipulated 10 stone 10 lbs., and, as we can safely affirm, from ocular demonstration, in the perfection of condition.
In the face of a vigilant and hostile magistracy and police, the managers necessarily adopted unusual precautions to confine the knowledge of the time and place to none but “safe men.” Accordingly, not only was the day kept secret, but it was not until the overnight that even the line of rail and amount of fare were disclosed to intending “excursionists.” When the “office” was given to those who were prepared to invest £2 2s. in cardboard, the rendezvous was stated to be the Paddington terminus of the Great Western, and the time two o’clock a.m., on the morning of St. Partridge, September 1st, 1863; and thither, at that unreasonable and unseasonable hour, did the “sheep destined for the shearing” eagerly repair.
Unhappily for the fortunes, nay, the very existence of the P.R., it had become the practice of the floating fraternity of thieves, mobsmen, and “roughs”—the latter too often combining the two former in the same ruffianly individual—to stream to the railway station whenever they got scent of a Ring “excursion,” instinctively knowing that there plunder might be perpetrated. As where the carcase is, there will the birds of prey be gathered, so on this 1st of September in the darkness and gloom of a cloudy morning, a riot was got up outside the entrances to the noble building, and many persons hustled, robbed, and occasionally personally ill-treated, by a disorderly crowd which, we can of our own avouch declare, did not comprise in its whole body one single known pugilist. Yet more than one of our “best possible public instructors” informed the public that “a mob of prize-fighters and other ruffians robbed and maltreated the intending travellers with lawless impunity.” Passing the baseless imputation that “prize-fighters and other ruffians” were personally engaged in this nocturnal mêlée, we must declare that of all the scenes of riot and disorder we have witnessed, that at Paddington was the most disgraceful, and marked the lowest stage in the downward journey of the Ring, unless we accept the wrangles and rows of the partisans of the men at some minor fights as exemplifying the Miltonic paradox—