When the prize-ring was set up between four walls, and its contests decided after dinner before a mob of gentlemen in evening dress, its chief London home was, and is, the National Sporting Club. The National Sporting Club was not the direct descendant of the prize-ring, but came to the sons of men by way of the West London Rowing Club, in connection with which there was a boxing-club supported by such sportsmen as “Pills” Holloway, “Nobby” Hall, and other gentlemen pugilists. The umpires, referees, and time-keepers at the National Sporting Club had graduated at the West London, which had its premises on the tow-path by Putney Bridge. The chief of these were Mr. “Jack” Angle, Mr. Vyse, and Mr. “Tom” Anderson, of the Board of Trade. All three were men of dress and of address—what used to be called “swells,” in fact—and Anderson was always noted for the wonderful depth of his linen collars; indeed, he may be said to have set that fashion in collars which a few years since bid fair to strangle the rising hope of England. Whenever a boxing contest came off at the National Sporting, the names of these three veterans of the gloves appeared in the newspapers publishing reports of the “fights.” When Sir Courtney Boyle became Chief of the Board of Trade, he was scandalized to find the name of a gentleman holding an important position in the office appearing publicly in such a degrading connection, and Anderson was tabled, and informed that if he wished to retain his position he must abandon all official connection with the “ring.” Anderson’s resentment may, perhaps, be found expressed in the fact that shortly afterwards Sir Courtney became known in Whitehall as “Doubtful Boyle.” On being asked the meaning of the sobriquet, Anderson would slyly answer: “The chief is so called because he is always in doubt as to whether godamighty made him or he made godamighty!”
When the National Sporting Club was yet unthought of, and when the premises they occupy was still Evans’s Hotel, there was a tobacconist’s shop next door, and behind the shop there was an American bowling-alley. This was Kilpack’s. It was an old-fashioned shop, and the customers sat on tobacco-barrels beside the counter. The bowling-alley was not much frequented when I knew it; but earlier in the nineteenth century it had a vogue, I understand. It was a capital alley, and I have enjoyed many a game there with citizens of the United States, who did not, I am bound to confess, take much stock in the pastime. Behind the counter of the cigar-shop was a middle-aged man, very genial and reminiscent. The customers always called him “Kilpack,” and he always “answered” to that name; but the original Kilpacks had disappeared long before, and this amiable person—probably a Smith or a Jones—thought it a safe policy to carry on the old traditions under the old name. Kilpack’s was
“A link within the days to bind
The generations each to each.”
As I see these old landmarks disappear one by one from the face of the Metropolitan area, I experience a pang of bereavement as at the death of an old friend. The site upon which the demolished Kilpack’s once stood is now occupied by the premises of a draper.
I never had much to do with the money-lending fraternity. I tried on one occasion to borrow fifty of Sam Lewis. I may mention at once that I did not succeed. But my visit on the occasion to 17, Cork Street established a friendship between Sam and myself which continued until his death. I have heard a good many stories about the rapacity of Sam in his professional capacity. His critics forget to estimate the risks which he continually took, and when one remembers the sort of men his principal “clients” were, and the eventual destination of the millions which the worthy Sam accumulated, it must be admitted that the public has benefited by the transactions. Had the vast sums of interest which Sam Lewis hauled in from clients like Ailesbury percolated through other channels, Society would not have been a halfpenny the better. As it was, the Lewis millions went in the end to benefit hospitals and other great public charities. Sam left a lot to be disposed of in this way, leaving the bulk of his little savings to his wife. That lady did not survive her husband by many years, and her will added enormously to the benefactions devised by her husband. In the testamentary acts of both husband and wife the Christian charities were as liberally treated as were those distinctively Jewish.
Lewis was a dapper, well-dressed little man, with a bald head and a smile of winning quality; indeed, all Sam’s qualities were winning qualities. His offices were on the first-floor of the house next door to the Blue Posts in Cork Street, and impecunious flâneurs emerging from the Burlington Arcade were often blessed by a sight of the back of Sam’s head as he leaned against the window talking to some “forlorn and shipwrecked brother” intent on discovering the wherewithal on which to “take heart again.”
Lewis began life as a traveller in real and sham jewellery, to which he added, as time went on, some little adventures on his own account in the tally-man arena of British enterprise. The most melancholy young man I ever saw was his clerk—one Gilbey by name. Whether this young man’s melancholy was constitutional or was caused by his acquaintance with the seamy side of Society, or by the monotonous filling up of bills for Sam’s clients to sign, I never could make out. Sam’s chief jackal was one Alfred Snelling, whose office was in a little house looking down Savile Row.
Not often have the betting ring and the tipsters and “the boys” generally come across so soft a thing as they found in Ernest Benzon, whose meteoric course lasted just two years. It must be confessed that this extraordinary young man contrived to fill the public eye during that period to the exclusion of more useful subjects, and it cost him just a quarter of a million of money to achieve that splendid notoriety. The fortune to which Benzon—known during his brief career on the turf as “the Jubilee Juggins”—succeeded was made by his father, a Birmingham man. The trade by which it was accumulated was that of constructing umbrella-frames. That a fortune thus made should have been inherited by one who was utterly oblivious to the necessity of laying by something for a rainy day strikes a reflective person as being at once strange and sad. Benzon did not acquire the sobriquet “Juggins” for nothing. He was the last man in the world to whom the control of a fortune should have been committed.
Benzon was absolutely vain, frivolous, and assertive. He fancied himself no end at things for which he had no very great aptitude. As an instance of this, I remember quite well how he challenged John Roberts at pyramids for a sovereign a ball. Of course, Roberts “took him on,” with what result can be imagined. He had that sort of sickly sentimentality which may be encountered in the sixpenny gallery of the homes of melodrama—a sentimentality which can exist in natures incapable of any quite genuine emotion. Benzon squandered money, and doubtless was robbed of money; but I have never heard a case in which he spent money on a generous impulse or with the intention of doing an act of solid benefit to an individual or to the human race. Yet I accompanied him on one occasion to the Adelphi Theatre. A melodrama of the ordinary Adelphi sort was being played, and Benzon became so extremely touched by the sufferings of the heroine that he began blubbering like a child. Nor can it be said that the exhibition was explicable on the ground that the “Juggins” was “crying drunk.”
When Benzon had melted his patrimony of a quarter of a million, he thought to maintain his notoriety by telling the world how he had managed to do it. To this motive may be attributed the appearance of a book attributed to him, and entitled, “How I Lost £250,000 in Two Years.” His friends now considered that a new and reputable career was opened up to him; for the work was extremely well written, and the “Jubilee Juggins” accepted with never-failing geniality the congratulations which were showered upon him. But even here Benzon was fated to be a disappointment to his friends. Some months after the book appeared an action was brought against the publisher by Vero Shaw. From the evidence given during the hearing it transpired that, save for the two words “Ernest Benzon” which appeared under his likeness opposite the title-page, not a scrap of the work had been done by the “Juggins” himself. It was all the work of Vero Shaw, constructed out of such flimsy materials as could be gathered from the vapid conversation of the devoted plunger and the diary of the latter’s tutor.