SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



and a copy of his advertisement is here re- 

 produced : 



AT BROUGHTON'S NEW 

 AMPHITHEATRE 



Oxford Street 

 The back of the late Mr. Figg's 



On Tuesday next, the I3th instant 

 Will be exhibited 



THE TRUE ART OF BOXING 



By the eight famed following men, viz. : 



Abraham Evans Allen 



Sweep Robert Spikes and 



Belas Harry Gray the clog- 



Glover maker 



Roger 



The above eight men to be brought on the 

 stage and to be matched according to the approba- 

 tion of the gentlemen who shall honour them with 

 their Company. 



N.B. There will be BATTLE ROYAL between the 

 NOTED BUCKHORSE 



and seven or eight more ; after which there will 

 be several BYE BATTLES by others. 



Gentlemen are therefore desired to come by 

 times. The doors open at nine ; the champions 

 mount at eleven. 



Broughton was the first to draw up a code of 

 rules for contests, and these rules were revised 

 in 1853 and 1866 by the Pugilistic Associa- 

 tion. 



Broughton reigned undefeated until 1750, 

 when he accepted the challenge of Slack, the 

 Norfolk champion. Broughton looked upon 

 the affair as a certainty ; he did no training, 

 and actually made Slack a present of ten 

 guineas not to cry off. The match took place 

 at the amphitheatre in Oxford Street, and 

 Broughton's lack of condition lost him the 

 day, his eyes so swelling from Slack's blows 

 that he could not see. The Duke of Cum- 

 berland, the victor of Culloden, who was 

 Broughton's backer, was said to have lost 

 10,000 guineas over the match. 



After Slack succeeded champions of vary- 

 ing powers until Mendoza, a Jew from 

 Houndsditch, gained the title in 1792. His 

 battles with 'Gentleman Humphreys' attracted 

 much attention to the art. In 1795 'Gentle- 

 man Jackson,' another Londoner, defeated 

 Mendoza. Jackson subsequently at his rooms 

 in Bond Street was instructor to half the no- 

 bility, including Lord Byron, the poet. Jackson 

 died 7 October 1845, and a handsome monu- 

 ment was erected to his memory in West 

 Brompton Cemetery. 



In 1800 James Belcher of Bristol arrived 

 in London and carried all before him until he 



was defeated by his fellow townsmen, Pearce 

 and Tom Cribb. Pearce also defeated Gully, 

 afterwards M.P. for Pontefract, for the cham- 

 pionship, which Gully subsequently gained 

 in 1808. Tom Cribb (long resident in Panton 

 Street), became a very popular champion by 

 reason of his two tremendous battles with the 

 Herculean black Molyneux. For his second 

 match with the negro he was taken to Scot- 

 land and specially trained by Captain Barclay 

 of Urie. 



These were the palmy days of the ring, 

 when royalty in the persons of the Prince 

 Regent and his brother the Duke of Clarence 

 were not infrequent attendants at matches. 

 At his coronation George IV engaged twenty 

 of the leading pugilists as pages, and to com- 

 memorate their services presented them with 

 a coronation medal, which was raffled for and 

 won by Thomas Belcher. 



To Cribb succeeded Thomas Spring, whose 

 establishment, the Castle Inn in Holborn, now 

 the ' Napier,' was long a favourite house of 

 call for country squires and London visitors. 



James Ward, a very scientific boxer from 

 East London, gained the championship on 

 Spring's retirement. He lived to the age of 84, 

 and died in 1884. Another Londoner, Burke, 

 a waterman in the Strand, succeeded Ward. 

 In these days minor matches were numerous, 

 and were decided no further away than Pad- 

 dington, Highgate, Finchley, and Barnet, but 

 when the authorities became more particular 

 the railways and steamboats were utilized to 

 reach spots where interference was unlikely. 

 Caunt, who lived for many years off Regent 

 Street, divided the championship for some 

 years with W. Thompson, the renowned 

 Bendigo of Nottingham, but the champions 

 degenerated greatly in science until the ad- 

 vent of the redoubtable Tom Sayers. 



Coming from Sussex at an early age that 

 great fighter settled at Camden Town, and 

 step by step fought his way to the top of the 

 tree. During his career he contested sixteen 

 battles. He only once, when hardly out of 

 his novitiate, suffered defeat, at the hands of 

 the scientific Nathaniel Langham, who, how- 

 ever, declined to meet him a second time. 

 Sayers' height was 5 ft. 8 in., and his weight 

 lost. 6 Ib. to lost. I alb. ; but he took on 

 all comers. With small hands and arms he 

 possessed fine shoulders, with great muscular 

 development, and his hitting was tremendous. 

 He was an excellent judge of distance and of 

 timing his blows, and very active on his feet. 

 He rarely used his right hand until he had 

 got the measure of his opponent, and then 

 brought it into play with such telling effect, 

 that that hand was called his ' auctioneer. 1 



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