254 SPORTING STORIES 



The only pugilist whose popularity can compare with that 

 of Tom Sayers is Tom Cribb, who twice beat Molineux 

 the Black for the Championship of England. But then 

 Cribb won his fame in the days when the Prize Ring 

 was a national institution, openly supported, not only 

 by the nobility and gentry, but by Royalty itself. 

 Sayers, on the other hand, gained his celebrity and 

 popularity at a time when the Prize Ring was a dis- 

 credited and disreputable institution, which the law 

 suppressed whenever it could, and from which decent 

 folks mostly kept aloof, disgusted at the blackguardism 

 with which it was associated. Yet wherever you went 

 there was no topic discussed with such interest as the 

 great fight between Sayers and Heenan. And I think 

 the fact that a professional prize-fighter, in the then state 

 of public opinion, should have attracted such attention and 

 won such universal popularity is an extraordinary tribute 

 to the character of Thomas Sayers. 



The scenes in London on the eve of that memorable 

 battle have seldom been paralleled. Every sporting house 

 was packed with crowds of people eager to obtain the 

 " office " for the morrow's rendezvous. All night the 

 streets were seething with excitement. Thousands of 

 persons never went to bed, and London Bridge Station 

 at dawn on the morning of 17th April i860 presented 

 a spectacle such as one sees nowadays at Waterloo on 

 Derby day. 



Heenan, the Benicia Boy, was in the prime of his early 

 manhood. His deep chest, his powerful shoulders, his 

 broad back and extraordinarily long arms, were points that 

 impressed themselves upon one at the first glance. A 

 closer scrutiny showed that he was trained to the hour. 

 You could count the ribs, which stood out like those of a 

 greyhound at Altcar, and beneath the clear white satiny skin 

 you could see the bands of sinew and the knots of muscle 

 moving like strips of ivory. His height was 6 ft. 2 ins., his 

 weight 13 st. 8 lbs. His age was 27 all but a fortnight. 



Against this colossal mass of muscle was pitted a man 

 who looked like a pigmy by comparison ; for Tom Sayers 

 stood but 5 ft. 8^ ins. and scaled only 10 st. 9 lbs. In age, 



