AN INCIDENT ON THE ROAD TO NEWMARKET.
My first visit to Newmarket Heath had one or two little incidents
which may be interesting, although of no great importance. The
Newmarket of to-day is not quite the same Newmarket that it was then:
many things connected with it have changed, and, above all, its
frequenters have changed; and if "things are not what they seem," they
do not seem to me, at all events, to be what they were "in my day."
Sixty years is a long space of time to traverse, but I do so with a
very vivid recollection of my old friend Charley Wright.
It was on a bright October morning when we set out, and glad enough
was I to leave the courts at Westminster and the courts of the
Temple--glad enough to break loose from the thraldom of nothing to do
and get away into the beautiful country.
Charley and I were always great friends; we had seen so much together,
especially of what is called "the world," which I use in a different
sense from that in which we were now to seek adventures. We had seen
so much of its good and evil, its lights and shades, and had so many
memories in common, that they formed the groundwork of a lasting
friendship.
He was the only son of an almost too indulgent father, who was the
very best example of an old English gentleman of his day you could
ever meet. He also had seen a good deal of life, and was not
unfamiliar with any of its varied aspects. He was intellectual and
genial, and dispensed his hospitality with the most winning courtesy.
To me he was all kindness, and I have a grateful feeling of delight in
being able in these few words to record my affectionate reverence for
his memory. It was at his house in Pall Mall that I met John Leech and
Percival Leigh.
But I digress as my mind goes back to these early dates, and unless
I break away, Charley and I will not reach Newmarket in time for the
first race. It happened that when we made this memorable visit I
had an uncle living at The Priory at Royston, which was some
five-and-twenty miles from Newmarket, where the big handicap, I think
the Cesarewitch, was to be run the following day, or the next--I
forget which.
But an interesting episode interrupted our journey to the Heath.
To our surprise, and no little to our delight, there was to be an
important meeting of the "Fancy" to witness a great prize-fight
between Jack Brassy and Ben Caunt.
Ben Caunt was the greatest prize-fighter, both in stature and bulk, as
well as in strength, I ever saw. He looked what he was--then or soon
after--the champion of the world.
Brassy, too, was well made, and seemed every whit the man to meet
Caunt. The two, indeed, were equally well made in form and shape, and
as smooth cut as marble statues when they stripped for action.
The advertisements had announced that the contest was to come off at,
"or as near thereto as circumstances permitted" (circumstances here
meaning the police), the village of Little Bury, near Saffron Walden.
At the little inn of the village some of the magnates of the Ring were
to assemble on the morning of the fight for an early breakfast,
to which Charley and I had the good fortune to be invited by Jack
Brassy's second, Peter Crawley, another noted pugilist of his day.
It was different weather from that we enjoyed in the early morning,
for the rain was now pouring down in torrents, and we had a drive of
no less than fifteen miles before us to the scene of action. Vehicles
were few, and horses fewer. Nothing was to be had for love or money,
as it seemed. But there was at last found one man who, if he had
little love for the prize-ring, had much reverence for the golden coin
that supported it. He was a Quaker. He had an old gig, and, I think, a
still older horse, both of which I hired for the journey--the Quaker,
of course, pretending that he had no idea of any meeting of the
"Fancy" whatever. Nor do I suppose he would know what that term
implied.
If ever any man in the world did what young men are always told by
good people to do--namely, to persevere--I am sure we did, Charley and
I, with the Quaker's horse. Whether he suspected the mission on which
we were bent, or was considering the danger of such a scene to his
morals, I could not ascertain, but never did any animal show a greater
reluctance to go anywhere except to his quiet home.
Your happiness at these great gatherings depended entirely upon the
distance or proximity of the police. If they were pretty near, the
landlord of the inn would hesitate about serving you, and if he
did, would charge a far higher price in consequence of the supposed
increased risk. He would never encourage a breach of the peace in
defiance of the county magistrates, who were the authority to renew
his licence at Brewster Sessions. So much, then, if the officers of
justice were _near_.
If they happened to be absent--which, as I have said, occasionally
occurred when a big thing was to come off--there was then a dominant
feeling of social equality which you could never see manifested so
strongly in any other place. A gentleman would think nothing of
putting his fingers into your pockets and abstracting your money, and
if you had the hardihood to resent the intrusion, would think less of
putting his fist into your eyes.
We were by no means certain, as I learned, that our fight would come
off after all, for it appeared the magistrates had given strict and
specific instructions to the police that no combat was to take place
in the county of Essex. Consequently the parties whose duty it was to
make preparations had fled from that respectable county and gone away
towards Six Mile Bottom, just in one of the corners of Cambridgeshire,
as if the intention was that the dons of the University should have
a look in. Constables slept more soundly in Cambridgeshire than in
Essex. Moreover, the Essex magistrates would themselves have a moral
right to witness the fight if it did not take place in their county.
Thus we set out for the rendezvous. Charley soon discovered that
our steed was not accustomed to the whip, for instead of urging him
forward it produced the contrary effect. However, we got along by slow
degrees, and when we came up with the crowd--oh!
Such a scene I had never witnessed in my life, nor could have
conceived it possible anywhere on this earth or anywhere out of that
abyss the full description of which you will find in "Paradise Lost."
It was a procession of the blackguardism of all ages and of all
countries under heaven. The sexes were apparently in equal numbers and
in equal degrees of ugliness and ferocity. There were faces flat for
want of noses, and mouths ghastly for want of teeth; faces scarred,
bruised, battered into every shape but what might be called human.
There were fighting-men of every species and variety--men whose
profession it was to fight, and others whose brutal nature it was;
there were women fighters, too, more deadly and dangerous than the
men, because they added cruelty to their ferocity. Innumerable women
there were who had lost the very nature of womanhood, and whose mouths
were the mere outlet of oaths and filthy language. Their shrill
clamours deafened our ears and subdued the deep voices of the men,
whom they chaffed, reviled, shrieked at, yelled at, and swore at by
way of _fun_.
Amidst this turbulent rabble rode several members of the peerage, and
even Ministerial supporters of the "noble art," exchanging with the
low wretches I have mentioned a word or two of chaff or an occasional
laugh at the grotesque wit and humour which are never absent from an
English crowd.
As we approached the famous scene, to which every one was looking with
the most intense anticipation, the crowd grew almost frenzied with
expectancy, and yet the utmost good-humour prevailed. In this spirit
we arrived at Bourne Bridge, and thence to the place of encounter was
no great distance. It was a little field behind a public-house.
Every face was now white with excitement, except the faces of the
combatants. They were firm set as iron itself. Trained to physical
endurance, they were equally so in nerve and coolness of temperament,
and could not have seemed more excited than if they were going to
dinner instead of to one of the most terrible encounters I ever
witnessed.
To those who have never seen an exhibition of this kind it was quite
amazing to observe with what rapidity the ropes were fixed and the
ring formed; nor were the men less prompt. Into the ring they stepped
with their supporters, or seconds, and in almost an instant the
principals had shaken hands, and were facing each other in what well
might be deadly conflict. There were illustrious members of all
classes assembled there, members probably of all professions, men
who afterwards, as I know, became great in history, politics, law,
literature, and religion; for it was a very great fight, and attracted
all sorts and conditions from all places and positions. Nothing since
that fight, except Tom Sayers and the "Benicia Boy," has attracted so
goodly and so fashionable an audience and so fierce an assembly of
blackguards.
But in the time of the latter battle the decadence of the Ring was
manifest, and was the outcome of what is doubtless an increasing
civilization. At the time of which I am now speaking the Prize Ring
was one of our fashionable sports, supported by the wealthy of all
classes, and was supposed to contribute to the manliness of our race;
consequently our distinguished warriors, as well as the members of our
most gentle professions, loved a good old-fashioned English "set-to,"
and nobody, as a rule, was the worse for it, although my poor brother
Jack never recovered his half-crowns.
We had been advised to take our cushions from the gig to sit upon,
because the straw round the ring was soddened with the heavy rains,
and I need not say we found it was a very wise precaution. The straw
had been placed round the ring for the benefit of the _élite_, who
occupied front seats.
The fight now began, and, I must repeat, I never saw anything like it.
Both pugilists were of the heaviest fighting weights. Caunt was a real
giant, ugly as could be by the frequent batterings he had received
in the face. His head was like a bull-dog's, and so was his courage,
whilst his strength must have been that of a very Samson; but if it
was, it did not reside in his hair, for that was short and close as a
mouse's back.
At first I thought Brassy had the best of it; he was more active,
being less ponderous, and landed some very ugly ones, cutting right
into the flesh, although Caunt did not appear to mind it in the least.
Brassy, however, did not follow up his advantage as I thought he ought
to have done, and in my opinion dreaded the enormous power and force
of his opponent in the event of his "getting home."
With the usual fluctuations of a great battle, the contest went on
until nearly a _hundred rounds_ were fought, lasting as many minutes,
but no decisive effect was as yet observable. After this, however,
Brassy could not come up to time. The event, therefore, was declared
in Caunt's favour, and his opponent was carried off the field on a
hurdle into the public-house, where I afterwards saw him in bed.
Thus terminated the great fight of the day, but not thus my day's
adventures.
The sport was all that the most enthusiastic supporters of the Ring
could desire. It no doubt had its barbarous aspects, regarded from
a humanitarian point of view, but it was not so demoralizing as the
spectacle of some poor creature risking his neck in a performance
for which the spectator pays his sixpence, and the whole excitement
consists in the knowledge that the actor may be dashed to pieces
before his eyes.
It was time now to leave the scene, so Charley and I went to look for
our gig (evidence of gentility from the time of Thurtell and Hunt's
trial for the murder of Mr. Weare).
Alas! our respectability was gone--I mean the gig.
In vindication of the wisdom and foresight of Charley and myself, I
should like to mention that we had entrusted that valuable evidence of
our status to the keeping of a worthy stranger dressed in an old red
jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers fastened with a wisp of hay
below the knees.
When we arrived at the spot where he promised to wait our coming, he
was gone, the horse and gig too; nor could any inquiries ascertain
their whereabouts.
Whether this incident was a judgment on the Quaker, as Wright
suggested, or one of the inevitable incidents attendant on a
prize-fight, I am not in a position to say; but we thought it served
the Quaker right for letting us a horse that would not go until the
gentleman in the red jacket relieved us of any further trouble on that
account.
Mistakes are so common amongst thieves that one can never tell how the
horse got away; but if I were put on my oath, knowing the proclivities
of the animal, I should say that he was backed out of the field.
We were now, as it seemed, the most deplorable objects in creation:
without friends and without a gig, wet through, shelterless, amidst
a crowd of drunken, loathsome outcasts of society, with only one
solitary comfort between us--a pipe, which Charley enjoyed and I
loathed. Drink is always quarrelsome or affectionate, generally the
one first and the other after. When the tears dry, oaths begin, and we
soon found that the quarrelsome stage of the company had been reached.
Amidst all this excitement we had not forgotten that this little
matter of the prize-fight was but an incident on our journey to
Newmarket. We knew full well that our present appearance would have
found no recognition in the Mall. But we cared nothing for the Mall,
as we were not known by the fashion in the racing world; and as for
the others, we should like to avoid them in any world.
You will wonder in these circumstances what we did. We waited where we
were through the whole of that wet afternoon, and then, on a couple of
hacks--how we obtained them I don't know; I never asked Charley,
and nothing of any importance turns upon them--we arrived at our
comfortable Royston quarters about eight o'clock, tired to death.
We were received with a hearty welcome by my uncle, who was much
entertained with our day's adventures. He liked my description of the
fight, especially when I told him how Brassy "drew Caunt's claret,"
and showed such other knowledge of the scientific practice that no one
could possibly have learnt had he not read up carefully _Bell's Life_
for the current week.
I am sure my uncle thought I was one of the best of nephews, and I
considered him in reality "my only uncle." Long, thought I, may he
prove to be; and yet I never borrowed a penny from him in my life.
On the next day, fully equipped, and with all that was necessary for
our distinguished position, we set out for Newmarket Heath, even now
the glory of the racing world, not forgetting Goodwood, which is more
or less a private business and fashionable picnic.
I shall not attempt to describe Newmarket. No one can describe, the
indescribable. I will only say it was not the Newmarket which our
later generation knows. It was then in its crude state of original
simplicity. There were no stands save "the Duke's," at the top of the
town, and one other, somewhat smaller and nearer to the present grand
stand. Those who could afford to do so rode on horseback about the
Heath; those who could not walked if they felt disposed, or sat down
on the turf--the best enjoyment of all if you are tired. We did all
three: we rode, walked, and sat down. At last, after a thoroughly
enjoyable outing, such as the Bar knows nothing of in these
respectable times, we returned to our business quarters in the Temple.