Cumberland Wrestling Champions. 69 



Its great advantage over the Devon and Cornish mode 

 is, that it is unattended with the same savage play, 

 and therefore does not create any ill blood. Two men 

 will come in a gig to Carlisle, and go into the ring ; 

 one will throw the other, if he chances to be drawn 

 against him, and they will ride back together at 

 night as. good friends as ever. We do not read of 

 "the dreadful execution of the toe" in connexion 

 with it, and how " some of the young Cornwall men 

 are trying the toe, but whether they will for a long 

 time be able to bear the punishment, and keep their 

 tempers like the Devonshire men, is doubtful." 

 Again, the practice of the rival counties is assimilated, 

 and we have no involved challenges like that from 

 Abraham Cann* of whom the Cornish men sang, 

 with more fealty than truth, that he 



"was not the man 

 To wrestle with Polkinghorne." 



Be this as it may, among the champions of the 

 Carlisle ring who were still wrestling, or whose memo- 

 ries were still green in '30, Nicholson of Threlkeld, old 

 Will " Rutson" of Caldbeck, Will Weightman of Hay- 

 ton, and George Irving of Bolton Gate — all of them 

 Cumberland men — stood pre-eminent. Nicholson 

 wrestled principally in Carlisle and at Windermere. 

 His great chip was the click on the outside of the 

 heel, and he always stood well up to his man. His 

 stature was six feet, by thirteen stone : and old 

 " Roan," or Rowland Long of Ambleside, who weighed 

 fully five stone more, was like the Dixons of Gras- 

 mere, of "no use till him." Will Richardson, or 



* Cann wrote :—" Polkinghorne, I will take off my stockings and 

 play bare-legged with you, and you may have two of the hardest and 

 heaviest shoes you like that can be made of leather in the county of 

 Cornwall, and you shall be allowed to stuff yourself as high as the arm- 

 pits, to any extent, not exceeding the size of a Cornish peck of wool ; 

 and I will further engage not to kick you, if you do not kick me. ' 



