TOM SPRING AND JACK LANGAN
The year 1824 was the climax of the best period of the Prize-Ring.
There were good fights in later years, as we shall see, first-rate
champions, high skill, noble endurance: but the institution of the Ring
was never in such good case again. And the most notable events of that
year in pugilism were the two great fights between the Champion of
England, Tom Spring, and the Champion of Ireland, Jack Langan.
This combat, which was for £300 a side, took place at Worcester
Racecourse on January 7th. The men were splendidly matched, in years
and in physique. Langan was twenty-five, Spring twenty-nine. There was
no serious difference in their weight or height. Spring was the better
built man, with the body of an all-round athlete; whilst Langan was
awkwardly made, hard, angular, with enormous hands. He was known as a
brave and skilful fighter, though he had never fought a battle yet with
any men of the first rank.
The magistrates in the neighbourhood of Worcester had at first shown
signs of opposition to the fight, but considerable influence was
brought to bear upon them, so many great sportsmen were interested
in the event, that they gave way; and, far from being secret and
improvised, the arrangements for the great battle were as deliberate
and as open as those for a public funeral. Stands were built about the
racecourse, a special ring was constructed, and accommodation, it is
said, for at least 20,000 spectators was provided. All the roads of
England, so to speak, converged upon Worcester, and men paid a guinea
for a shake-down in the loft of a small ale-house. Indeed, the people
of Worcester subscribed £200 to the agents of Spring and Langan to
make sure of the battle taking place there, so certain were they of
the harvest to come. Onlookers were in their places two hours before
the fight began, and the rigging of vessels lying in the Severn, which
flowed beside the course, was full of those who could not raise the
five shillings, which was the smallest price for a place on the stands.
Spring was once more seconded by Tom Cribb and Ned Painter, Lord
Deerhrust acting as his umpire. Josh. Hudson and Tom Reynolds attended
to Langan, whilst his umpire was Sir H. Goodricke. Colonel Berkeley was
chosen by these umpires as the referee.
The first round was uneventful. The men were excessively cautious and
few blows were struck. It was observed that Langan’s guard was highly
efficient. Spring finally got in a heavy left on his opponent’s right
eye and Langan went down. At the next meeting the Irishman went for
the body, but Spring’s defence was very sure, and the two stood toe to
toe watching for an opportunity for some time. Finally Spring landed
with both hands, and later knocked Langan down with quite a slight hit.
During this round one of the stands overlooking the ring collapsed and
many people were severely injured. The two boxers waited to find out if
any one had been killed before continuing to fight. Fortunately, broken
arms and legs were the most serious injuries. This untoward event
resulted in about 2000 people who had occupied seats being added to the
crowd standing between the wrecked stand and the ring. Owing to this,
violent pressure was, from then onwards till the end of the battle,
thrown against the ropes, so that the outer ring was entirely broken,
and the inner was constantly altering in shape, sometimes hardly
leaving the men ten square feet to fight in. No doubt, as usual, many
roughs were present, but the breaking of the ring on this occasion may
reasonably be attributed to accident rather than a deliberate plan.
Langan still went for the body, and Spring, than whom there was never
a cooler boxer, waited for the attack each time; and as Langan lunged
forward from long range, lowering his head as he did so, the champion
caught him on the face. There was a great deal of wrestling throughout
this battle and in the early rounds Spring had been heavily thrown.
In the eighth round, the champion who felt himself to be the better
boxer, knowing well that he had been getting the worst of the throws,
fought much harder and drove Langan into his corner. But he had been
hitting the Irishman about his head with great force, and, like Jem
Belcher with Tom Cribb, he had injured his hands. The knuckles were not
actually driven up, but Spring’s hands “puffed” easily, and already
they were swollen and soft, and each blow, especially with the left
hand, was an agony to him. This round ended with both men slipping
down. So far Spring was unmarked, while Langan was already a good deal
disfigured and bleeding. A little later he sent in a tremendous left
on the mark, but he had misjudged his distance and the blow was short
and did no harm. A good bit of boxing followed, for Spring countered
and the Irishman ducked from the blow, whereupon the champion caught
him with a sharp upper-cut; then he closed and threw Langan hard. The
thirteenth round was a hard one for Langan, Spring hitting him severely
on the nose with the right and closing his eye with a smashing left.
It must be remembered that all this time the champion’s hands were
growing more and more soft, that each blow he struck was more painful
than the one before. And yet all the time he kept quietly confident,
never grew flustered, and, besides throwing his man, still hit him
hard. He, too, was often thrown, and the nineteenth round found both
men panting with their exertions. In the next round Spring fought with
tremendous vigour. He dashed at his man, drove him round the ring, then
closed and hurled him to the grass, but refrained from falling on him
which, by the rules of that day, he was entitled to do.
The Irish champion was now definitely getting the worst of it, though
Spring showed signs of weakness. However, he ended the twenty-seventh
round by a right-hand blow on the face which lifted Langan from the
ground. Langan came up again and yet again, but now always to be
knocked or thrown down. He was much marked, but had been perfectly
trained and was a man of iron constitution. Spring was looking pale
and was clearly growing weak, but his skill and judgment were never at
fault. By the thirty-fifth round the officials had all they could do
to keep a clear space in the ring for the men to fight in. The rounds
now were very short. In the forty-fourth Langan made his last desperate
effort and did, in fact, hit as well as Spring, the round ending by
both going down together. After that, however, his strength had quite
gone. The fight went on till seventy-five rounds had been fought in two
hours and ten minutes. Finally Spring sent in a right-hander on the
neck which knocked Langan clean out of time. He lost consciousness, and
when he recovered on Cribb’s knee wanted to go on, furious when his
seconds restrained him, mortified to find that time had indeed been
called. He rose, but immediately fell back into Cribb’s arms.
It was generally held that Spring would have won much sooner but for
the puffing of his left hand. His right was injured too, but remained
effective if painful until the end.
After this battle, Tom Reynolds, Langan’s second and friend, complained
that his principal had not been given fair play, and that the crowd
had been allowed by Spring’s backers to break the ring because his
antagonist was an Irishman. In point of fact, the breaking of the ring
was no more to Langan’s disadvantage than the champion’s. Anyhow,
Langan was not satisfied, and a little later challenged Spring again,
this time for the very large prize (in those days) of £500 a side.
Langan stipulated for a raised and boarded stage, such as had been
used for the battle between Cribb and Molineux. At first the champion
objected to this, because he knew Langan’s wrestling powers, and that
to be thrown upon boards is a much worse business than upon grass.
However, he agreed in the end, for he saw Langan’s point, namely, that
a crowd cannot break a ring so easily upon a raised stage as in an open
field.
The second match took place at Birdham Bridge, near Chichester, on June
8th, 1824. Once again there was an enormous crowd, and this time the
ring was protected not only by being raised, but by a circle formed by
fifty-three farm wagons round about it.
Spring was, naturally, the favourite. He brought down the scales at 13
stone 4 lb., whilst Langan was a stone under that amount, and was by
some judges thought to have over-trained.
John Jackson, as was usual at all notable battles since his retirement,
superintended all the arrangements in connection with the ring.
Spring was once again seconded by the old champion and Painter, Langan
by Tom Belcher and O’Neil. Colours were tied to the posts in the men’s
respective corners: blue with white spots for Spring, black for Langan.
The fight began in very much the same way as the other between these
men. Nothing of any particular note occurred until the seventh round,
which was as good as any ever seen in the Prize-Ring. Spring led with
his left and hit Langan hard in the face, stepping back at once. In
those days they talked of Spring’s “harlequin step,” for he danced up
to a man, hit or missed, as the case might be, and danced away again,
extraordinarily light and easy upon his feet, and wonderfully quick.
Now he was dancing in again, and hit Langan on the ear and nose. The
Irishman came for more and was driven away with a stinging spank on
the cheek-bone. His backers now called on him to exert himself, and he
rushed at Spring, a great rally taking place, blow for blow, though
Langan got the worst of it. Then they closed, and Spring threw his man
heavily on the boards. Both were blowing when the round ended. It was
“the Bank of England to a nutshell” on Spring, but Langan was a true
Irishman. One of the differences between the English and the Irish
is this: the Englishman doesn’t know when he is beaten: the Irishman
neither knows nor cares. With or without the chance of winning, Langan
continued to fight.
By the eighteenth round Spring’s left hand was quite useless. But his
right hand was sound still and he used it with great effect. It was
Spring’s defence which made him one of the best knuckle-fighters that
ever lived. He could guard and stop blows with greater dexterity and
judgment than almost any other man, but he also understood the art of
avoiding punishment by good footwork, which entails less effort. He
was not a remarkably hard hitter, and, as we have seen, he suffered
severely from his hands: but his skill lay in hitting again and again
and yet again on precisely the same spot, so that the cumulative effect
of many blows was as great, if not greater in a long fight, than that
of a single smasher.
Certainly Langan succeeded, as he had in the previous affair, in
throwing the champion and in hurling his own twelve stone violently on
top of him, but as a boxer he was not, as they say, in the same street.
There was no sort of question about his pluck. Not satisfied with the
result of the previous battle, Jack Langan made his seconds promise on
this occasion not on any account to give in for him or to interfere in
any way. Indeed Tom Belcher more than once called on him to fight when
he was past fighting.
The twenty-fourth round found them both exceedingly willing. Spring
with slight marks on cheek and eye but otherwise undamaged by Langan.
Both his hands, however, were very swollen now. The fight had already
lasted fifty-two minutes, and Langan was much punished. But over and
over again he tried his best to get past Spring’s incomparable guard
and failed. And now, the champion was getting by far the better of the
falls too.
Once or twice during the later rounds there was a certain amount
of bickering between the opposing seconds. Cribb, on one occasion,
complained that Belcher was trying to gain time between the rounds: and
once when Langan seized his opponent by the breeches to throw him a
protest was made on that account, and the referee ordered Langan not to
do it again.
The thirty-second round ended with a heavy fall for Langan, who struck
his neck against one of the wooden rails which were used instead of
ropes around the ring. A little later, in the thirty-sixth round,
Langan’s backer, Colonel O’Neill, asked that he should be taken away.
But this he steadfastly refused, as did his seconds, who had given
their solemn promise in that regard. Instead, Langan took a nip of
brandy which helped him to recover momentarily: and battered and
sorely spent as he was, he croaked out jestingly to his seconds to be
sure and keep the brandy cold. He made one or two more attempts to
force the fighting, but his antagonist was still quite strong, unhurt,
and as alert to seize opportunities and avoid danger as in the first
round.
At the beginning of the forty-seventh round Langan was brought up to
the scratch by his seconds, which, though strictly speaking, against
the rules then in force, was frequently winked at. It was a good rule,
and should have been adhered to: because if a man could not come up
to the scratch at the call of time he was certainly in no condition
to continue fighting. After a time Langan’s conduct went beyond
the boundaries of pluck and became--what we should certainly call
to-day--foolish obstinacy. “There was nothing to be gained by going
on.” And how often do we hear that remark to-day in all manner of
diverse connections. But we should recognise a signal virtue in that
(no doubt foolish) desire to go on where “nothing is to be gained.”
“Leave me alone, I _will_ fight,” Langan said, when his plight was so
obviously hopeless that the crowd on all sides yelled for him to be
taken away. And he went on until the seventy-seventh round. And for
many rounds before the end Spring never hit at all, but gently pushed
the brave fellow down. In the end he came tottering to the scratch and
fell senseless without even the push.
This fight lasted for one hour and forty-eight minutes.
Both Spring and Langan retired after this and became fast friends.
“Thormanby” tell us that every year on the anniversary of their first
fight Langan used to send Tom Spring a keg of the very best Irish
potheen. Spring told “Thormanby” this story in 1851, just before he
died.
After his retirement the champion took the Castle Tavern in Holborn,
Tom Belcher’s lease of which had just expired, and he became widely
known as a great landlord and sportsman.
“Thormanby” has another story to tell of Jack Langan’s generosity. He
settled at Liverpool when he retired and took an inn there; and when
the Irish harvesters came over each year, Langan would put up as many
of them as he could for a couple of days on their way inland. These men
he fed and provided with plenty of beer and a nightcap of potheen--on
the condition that before going to roost they left their sickles and
shillelaghs in his care.
Towards the end of his life Tom Spring got into financial difficulties,
owing to his trust in friends who used him as an agent in betting
transactions, and then disappeared when the wrong horse got home or
the wrong man gave in. He died at the early age of fifty-six, in 1851;
Langan having predeceased him by five years.