240 SPORTING STORIES 



of Norwich, Bill Neate (the " Bristol Bull "), Gentleman 

 Jackson, George Cooper, Ned Turner, and many others. 

 Among the patrons of pugilism were numbered the best 

 men in every class of society — noblemen and gentlemen, 

 county magnates and City aldermen. Twenty or thirty 

 thousand eager spectators would gather round a ring, and 

 the money that changed hands over the event was seldom 

 reckoned under six figures. 



Those palmy days lasted until 1824, when Spring and 

 Langan fought their two great battles — the first at Worcester, 

 the second at Chichester. Thirty thousand spectators 

 witnessed the first of these combats on the Pitchcroft. 

 How many were present at the second I have no idea, but 

 never in its history has Chichester seen such an influx of 

 visitors. 



After his victory that day Spring resigned the Champion- 

 ship, and from his retirement dates the downfall of the 

 Ring. For Spring, like Cribb and his predecessors back to 

 Tom Johnson, was a man of stainless honour who was 

 respected and admired by everyone, but the same could 

 not be said of his successor, Jem Ward. Jem's conduct in 

 the Ring was not always above suspicion. Twice he 

 yielded to temptation, and once he was publicly expelled 

 from the Ring by the Pugilistic Club. That he redeemed 

 these errors by some brilliant victories is true ; but he 

 alienated some of the best patrons of the Prize Ring by his 

 early misdeeds, and they would never again countenance a 

 sport of which the Champion was a man whose honour was 

 stained. 



So the best supporters of the Ring turned away in 

 disgust, and from the advent of Jem Ward prize-fighting 

 declined as a national sport. The battles of Bendigo and 

 Ben Caunt, accompanied as they were by scenes of the 

 most outrageous ruffianism, still further alienated the 

 sympathies of those who loved to see a fair stand-up fight 

 with fists. And so the Ring went from bad to worse, till 

 its name stank in the nostrils of respectable sportsmen. 

 One last flicker of popularity, however, it enjoyed, for 

 which it was indebted to Tom Sayers, who by his courage 

 and honesty gave the old sport a new lease of life — not a 



