THROUGH George Bird I made the acquaintance of the leading surgeons and
physicians of the North London Hospital, where I frequently attended the
operations of Erichsen, John Marshall, and Sir Henry Thompson, following
them afterwards in their clinical rounds. Amongst the physicians,
Professor Sydney Ringer remains one of my oldest friends. Both surgery
and therapeutics interested me deeply. With regard to the first,
curiosity was supplemented by the incidental desire to overcome the
natural repugnance we all feel to the mere sight of blood.
Chemistry I studied in the laboratory of a professional friend of Dr.
Bird’s. After a while my teacher would leave me to carry out small
commissions of a simple character which had been put into his hands, such
as the analysis of water, bread, or other food-stuffs. He himself often
had engagements elsewhere, and would leave me in possession of the
laboratory, with a small urchin whom he had taught to be useful. This
boy was of the meekest and mildest disposition. Whether his master had
frightened him or not I do not know. He always spoke in a whisper, and
with downcast eyes. He handled everything as if it was about to
annihilate him, or he it, and looked as if he wouldn’t bite—even a
tartlet.
One day when I had finished my task, and we were alone, I bethought me of
making some laughing gas, and trying the effect of it on the gentle
youth. I offered him a shilling for the experiment, which, however,
proved more expensive than I had bargained for. I filled a bladder with
the gas, and putting a bit of broken pipe-stem in its neck for a
mouthpiece, gave it to the boy to suck—and suck he did. In a few seconds
his eyes dilated, his face became lividly white, and I had some trouble
to tear the intoxicating bladder from his clutches. The moment I had
done so, the true nature of the gutter-snipe exhibited itself. He began
by cutting flip-flaps and turning windmills all round the room; then,
before I could stop him, swept an armful of valuable apparatus from the
tables, till the whole floor was strewn with wreck and poisonous
solutions. The dismay of the chemist when he returned may be more easily
imagined than described.
Some years ago, there was a well-known band of amateur musicians called
the ‘Wandering Minstrels.’ This band originated in my rooms in Dean’s
Yard. Its nucleus was composed of the following members: Seymour
Egerton, afterwards Lord Wilton, Sir Archibald Macdonald my
brother-in-law, Fred Clay, Bertie Mitford (the present Lord
Redesdale—perhaps the finest amateur cornet and trumpet player of the
day), and Lord Gerald Fitzgerald. Our concerts were given in the Hanover
Square Rooms, and we played for charities all over the country.
To turn from the musical art to the art—or science is it called?—of
self-defence, once so patronised by the highest fashion, there was at
this time a famous pugilistic battle—the last of the old kind—fought
between the English champion, Tom Sayers, and the American champion,
Heenan. Bertie Mitford and I agreed to go and see it.
The Wandering Minstrels had given a concert in the Hanover Square Rooms.
The fight was to take place on the following morning. When the concert
was over, Mitford and I went to some public-house where the ‘Ring’ had
assembled, and where tickets were to be bought, and instructions
received. Fights when gloves were not used, and which, especially in
this case, might end fatally, were of course illegal; and every
precaution had been taken by the police to prevent it. A special train
was to leave London Bridge Station about 6 A.M. We sat up all night in
my room, and had to wait an hour in the train before the men with their
backers arrived. As soon as it was daylight, we saw mounted police
galloping on the roads adjacent to the line. No one knew where the train
would pull up. Ten minutes after it did so, a ring was formed in a
meadow close at hand. The men stripped, and tossed for places. Heenan
won the toss, and with it a considerable advantage. He was nearly a head
taller than Sayers, and the ground not being quite level, he chose the
higher side of the ring. But this was by no means his only ‘pull.’ Just
as the men took their places the sun began to rise. It was in Heenan’s
back, and right in the other’s face.
Heenan began the attack at once with scornful confidence; and in a few
minutes Sayers received a blow on the forehead above his guard which sent
him slithering under the ropes; his head and neck, in fact, were outside
the ring. He lay perfectly still, and in my ignorance, I thought he was
done for. Not a bit of it. He was merely reposing quietly till his
seconds put him on his legs. He came up smiling, but not a jot the
worse. But in the course of another round or two, down he went again.
The fight was going all one way. The Englishman seemed to be completely
at the mercy of the giant. I was so disgusted that I said to my
companion: ‘Come along, Bertie, the game’s up. Sayers is good for
nothing.’
But now the luck changed. The bull-dog tenacity and splendid condition
of Sayers were proof against these violent shocks. The sun was out of
his eyes, and there was not a mark of a blow either on his face or his
body. His temper, his presence of mind, his defence, and the rapidity of
his movements, were perfect. The opening he had watched for came at
last. He sprang off his legs, and with his whole weight at close
quarters, struck Heenan’s cheek just under the eye. It was like the kick
of a cart-horse. The shouts might have been heard half-a-mile off. Up
till now, the betting called after each round had come to ‘ten to one on
Heenan’; it fell at once to evens.
Heenan was completely staggered. He stood for a minute as if he did not
know where he was or what had happened. And then, an unprecedented thing
occurred. While he thus stood, Sayers put both hands behind his back,
and coolly walked up to his foe to inspect the damage he had inflicted.
I had hold of the ropes in Heenan’s corner, consequently could not see
his face without leaning over them. When I did so, and before time was
called, one eye was completely closed. What kind of generosity prevented
Sayers from closing the other during the pause, is difficult to
conjecture. But his forbearance did not make much difference. Heenan
became more fierce, Sayers more daring. The same tactics were repeated;
and now, no longer to the astonishment of the crowd, the same success
rewarded them. Another sledge-hammer blow from the Englishman closed the
remaining eye. The difference in the condition of the two men must have
been enormous, for in five minutes Heenan was completely sightless.
Sayers, however, had not escaped scot-free. In countering the last
attack, Heenan had broken one of the bones of Sayers’ right arm. Still
the fight went on. It was now a brutal scene. The blind man could not
defend himself from the other’s terrible punishment. His whole face was
so swollen and distorted, that not a feature was recognisable. But he
evidently had his design. Each time Sayers struck him and ducked, Heenan
made a swoop with his long arms, and at last he caught his enemy. With
gigantic force he got Sayers’ head down, and heedless of his captive’s
pounding, backed step by step to the ring. When there, he forced Sayers’
neck on to the rope, and, with all his weight, leant upon the
Englishman’s shoulders. In a few moments the face of the strangled man
was black, his tongue was forced out of his mouth, and his eyes from
their sockets. His arms fell powerless, and in a second or two more he
would have been a corpse. With a wild yell the crowd rushed to the
rescue. Warning cries of ‘The police! The police!’ mingled with the
shouts. The ropes were cut, and a general scamper for the waiting train
ended this last of the greatest prize-fights.
We two took it easily, and as the mob were scuttling away from the
police, we saw Sayers with his backers, who were helping him to dress.
His arm seemed to hurt him a little, but otherwise, for all the damage he
had received, he might have been playing at football or lawn tennis.
We were quietly getting into a first-class carriage, when I was seized by
the shoulder and roughly spun out of the way. Turning to resent the
rudeness, I found myself face to face with Heenan. One of his seconds
had pushed me on one side to let the gladiator get in. So completely
blind was he, that the friend had to place his foot upon the step. And
yet neither man had won the fight.
We still think—profess to think—the barbarism of the ‘Iliad’ the highest
flight of epic poetry; if Homer had sung this great battle, how glorious
we should have thought it! Beyond a doubt, man ‘yet partially retains
the characteristics that adapted him to an antecedent state.’