192 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



knuckles, de piiris 7iaturalibus, and without the brutal 

 punishment. One of the most determined and gallant 

 contests ever fought in modern days (for the details my 

 readers must be referred to the pages of BeWs Life of 

 nearly sixty years ago) was a fight for the champion- 

 ship of the light weights, for i^500, the combatants being 

 Johnny Broome and Jack Hannan. I am not quite 

 sure, but I think Broome won ; he represented London, 

 whilst Hannan hailed from Birmingham. 



The contest took place at the little village of Am- 

 brosedcn, near Bicester, on the borders of the counties 

 of Bucks and Oxon,and not far from Northamptonshire. 

 My father had just gone on a visit to some agri- 

 cultural friends in that county, and I, very young then, 

 was for the first time in my life left in charge of our 

 house of business. One evening whilst lounging about 

 with an almost empty house to look after, I was startled 

 by the sudden arrival of an open barouche and four 

 post-horses. The barouche contained four gentlemen 

 who impatiently demanded if they could have beds. 

 They were answered in the affirmative, and on alighting, 

 they expressed their surprise that the house was not 

 full of company. I could not repress my astonishment 

 at their surprise until the strangers informed me that 

 "the great fight" v/as to come off the very next morn- 

 ing, but that the locality wdiere it was to take place had 

 been kept a strict secret, and that it was not impossible 

 only a very short time would elapse before the house 

 and probably the town of Aylesbury would be crammed 

 with visitors. One of the guests. Lord Walter Butler, 

 ordered dinner, and then they began to deposit with me 



