DEAF BURKE AND SIMON BYRNE
On the retirement of Tom Spring the championship fell to Jem Ward,
who held it for many years. He was followed by Deaf Burke, whose
fight with Simon Byrne is the subject of this chapter. This, as will
be seen, was a disastrous fight, in that the unfortunate Byrne died
immediately after it. It is, however, necessary to give some details
of the circumstances, because Byrne’s death was typical of the sort of
accident that occasionally happened in connection with the Prize-Ring,
and has since happened more than once in connection with modern boxing.
I say “in connection,” rather awkwardly like that because, as will be
discovered presently, the fight in these cases is only the occasion and
not the actual cause of mortal injury.
The battle in question was fought at No Man’s Land, in Hertfordshire,
for £100 a side on May 30th, 1833. Almost exactly three years before,
Byrne had fought and beaten a man named McKay, who died next day. Byrne
had been tried for manslaughter and acquitted. The circumstances of the
death of both were somewhat similar: and there is no doubt that McKay’s
death preyed upon Byrne’s mind.
In the first place we find that Simon Byrne was grossly out of
condition before he went into training. He weighed 15 stone, and
reduced himself to 13 stone 4 lb. “An effort which,” _Bell’s Life
in London_ tells us, “as it was effected by hard work and sweating,
somewhat impaired his natural stamina, especially as, his habits being
far from abstemious when in Ireland, he was scarcely fitted to undergo
the necessary amount of labour.” That is, no doubt, the explanation
of the tragedy, as it has been the explanation of other tragedies,
one of which is within comparatively recent memory. As a rule, the
modern champion is a teetotaller, and generally speaking “takes care
of himself.” He lives not merely a “reasonable life,” but a life,
physically speaking, devoted to one end. His health comes before
everything else. It is, for better or for worse, a restrained, careful,
hygienic age--anyhow for boxers with pretensions. But in the old days,
the fighting men alternated between bouts of the wildest debauchery
and the most violently severe training. No wonder they died young. No
wonder that the sudden abstention from artificial stimulant combined
with over-hard work and culminating in the prolonged strain and pain of
a desperate battle occasionally killed them. The wonder is that there
were not more deaths from a like cause.
[Illustration: _A VIEW OF THE FIGHT BETWEEN_
GULLY AND GREGSON
[A] _Gully_
[B] _Joe Ward his second_
[C] _Gregson_
[D] _Harry Lee his second_
[E] _The Umpire_
_They fought in S^{ir} John Sebright’s Park near Market Street Herts on
May 10, 1808 when Gully beat his antagonist there was a great crowd of
Spectators._
_Published May 31, 1808 by G Thompson, N^o 43, Long Lane, West
Smithfield._]
Deaf Burke, on the other hand, was young and healthy, and in high
spirits. He was seconded by Tom Gaynor and Dick Curtis, Byrne by Tom
Spring and Jem Ward. On stripping, Burke was seen to be in perfect
condition, but Byrne looked still a little too fleshy and had no
special show of muscle upon him. He had a good deal of advantage in
height. Burke was the favourite but not at greater odds than 5-4, or
guineas to pounds.
In the days of bare knuckles there was generally a certain amount of
“honour” to be gained by achieving the first knock-down, or drawing
first blood. There was often betting on the subject, anyhow on the
former event. In the first round of this match a good deal of amusement
was caused by Burke. Byrne hit him on the nose and made him sniff.
Whereupon Byrne called out, “First blood!” Burke deliberately wiped his
nose with his finger and showed it to his opponent unstained. Then they
went at it again, and before long the Irishman was seen to be bleeding
at the mouth. But at the same moment Burke’s nose did begin to bleed,
so the umpires and the referee decided that it was a tie.
The second round found both the men in the best of good tempers, and
the hitting was even. Towards the end of this set-to there was a fierce
rally in which both gave heavy punishment. They closed, and Byrne threw
Deaf Burke and fell upon him. Burke’s defence was the sounder, but his
antagonist was the better wrestler. In the fourth round Byrne swung his
right with tremendous force at his man’s head, and had the blow landed
on the jaw it might well have finished the battle. But Burke moved
forward at that moment and the blow caught him on the back of the head
with much of its force spent, and no particular damage was done.
There was some good fighting in the next round. Each landed a hard
left, and then Byrne stepped back, landing a splendidly timed upper-cut
with his right as Burke came in. Then he closed and hurled the “Deaf
’un” down. Jem Ward derisively asked Burke from Byrne’s corner “How did
you like that?” and Burke grinned.
Byrne’s hand was now beginning to swell from the effects of his
tremendous punch in the fourth round. He again threw Burke, who
appeared none the worse for it. He was hitting the oftener, Byrne the
harder: but the Irishman’s best blows did not get through the other
man’s defence. Both were badly marked, however, and before the fight
had lasted three-quarters of an hour, had revived themselves with
brandy.
By the eighteenth round they were getting slow. Burke had a primitive
ruse which he employed from time to time of looking at his man’s body
and grimacing and then bringing up his fist to the head. He tried this
now with eminent success. In the next round Byrne received a very hard
blow under the ear, not by any means the first, which must have done
him more harm than he knew at the moment. He fought back, however, and
landed on Burke’s nose and again on the eye, when Burke lowered his
hands for a moment to wipe them on his breeches. “Loud laughter at
Burke’s expense,” says the writer in _Bell’s Life._
The first knock-down was administered by Byrne in the twenty-seventh
round. After that Byrne had distinctly the best of it for some time. He
threw Burke with terrific force on his head in the twenty-ninth round
and in the next hit him so severely about the body as to make him sick.
Burke was evidently weak, and Byrne seemed to have the fight in his
hand. He threw his opponent again and again, rushing him to the ropes
and hitting him severely before closing.
The responsible officials ought now to have stopped the fight, there
is no excuse for them whatever. What followed was sheer beastliness
and nothing else. Burke and Byrne are in no wise to blame. Both fought
until they were virtually senseless. Both tried to be, quite roughly
speaking, fair.
In the forty-third round Tom Cannon, a well-known bruiser and a backer
of Deaf Burke, broke, with others, into the ring and began to curse
Burke. “Get up and fight, Deaf ’un,” he shouted. “D’ye mean to make a
cross of it?”
With some difficulty Cannon and the rest were expelled from the ring,
and the fight, if fight it can be called, went on.
Both men were now nearly exhausted, but Deaf Burke, urged by his
seconds, went in with all his remaining strength and punished Byrne
severely. In the forty-ninth round the Irishman came to grass very
weak, and Burke became favourite again. And so it went on till the
ninety-ninth round, now one and now the other having some slight
advantage. Once, his supporters seeing Burke down and apparently
unconscious hailed Byrne as the winner: but at the call of time, Dick
Curtis, his second, brought Burke up to the scratch, where he stood
with indomitable pluck, ready to go on fighting. Byrne’s chances had
finally gone when both his hands became so “puffed” that he was unable
to strike a single blow which could hurt his opponent, let alone knock
him out.
Later on, the supporters of the men on either side, apart from their
seconds, crowded round them and sprinkled water on them during the
progress of the rounds, and fanned them with their hats. And the ring
was the centre of pandemonium. The crowd yelled and yelled again for
one or other, Burke or Byrne. What cared they that the men had long ago
fought themselves to exhaustion, so long as the technical decision was
obtained, the decision which would decide the bets?
And there are men now who complain that we are a softened race because
we don’t allow this sort of thing....
Burke remained slightly the stronger. Latterly he seldom “hit” except
with his open hand, but it was enough to send his antagonist down.
And yet in the ninety-first round Byrne managed to trip him and fall
on him, so that once again the Irishman’s chances were favoured. Then
Burke, answering the curses and the cheers, managed to knock Byrne
down rather harder than usual. And that was the last change. After
that Byrne was carried to the scratch virtually insensible, literally
dazed. He could just stand unsupported long enough for Burke to put
out his hand and topple him over. He made pitiful efforts to put out
his left to stop the “Deaf ’un.” But it was of no use. At last he
fell unconscious on the grass, and Tom Spring and Ward with all their
skill--sousing him with water, forcing brandy between his mutilated
lips, biting his ears--could not bring him round. And half of the crowd
deliriously cheered Deaf Burke as Champion of England.
Two days after this Simon Byrne died. The coroner’s jury brought in
a verdict of manslaughter against Burke, as “principal in the first
degree,” and the four seconds, together with the umpires and the
referee, as “principals in the second degree.”
These men were tried at the Hertford Assizes, and on the surgeon’s
evidence acquitted. The cause of death was the congestion of blood
in the brain. The surgeon also gave the opinion that the intense
disappointment of losing the fight lessened his chances of recovery.
When he regained consciousness, Byrne believed that he would die; and
this very fact, aided by his way of living “out of training,” no doubt
aggravated his condition.
This is probably true: but the umpires and the referee deserved the
most abusive censure.
Before the trial the sum of £262 was collected for Byrne’s widow: but
when the trial was safely and satisfactorily over, one hundred guineas
were subscribed in order to present a service of plate to the editor
of _Bell’s Life_, “as a token of the respect in which he was held,
not only by the men who had recently undergone their trial, and whose
defence he had conducted, but also for the manner in which he had
invariably conducted the cause of fair play....”