Corinthians

By L. A. G. STRONG Ores is an age which honours the prizefighter. His money rewards are dazzling, and there are few distinctions to which he may not aspire. We have known boxers turn film star, lecture to a university, and speak for a political party. Yet • even we should be surprised to see a boxer become a member of Parliament, be presented at Court, scan a hexameter, lose £40,000 on a single race, and win the

Derby and the Oaks in the'same year : all'of which happened to John Gully, bare-knuckle fighter of a century ago. When we add that his first fight was for the championship of England, that he figures in the pages of Hazlitt and I3Oz, that he lived to be seventy-nine, ond had twenty-four children, it is obvious that a biography was overdue. - •

John Gully was born-at Bristol, in the golden age of Bristol champions, and must have heard_ boxing talked around his cradle. His father was a master butcher. Things did not go too well, and young John, succeeding_ to the business, was presently thrown into prison for debt. Then came

the first event in his career of romance. Hen. Pearce, " the

Game Chicken," champion of the time, heard that there was in the prison a strong young fellow very handy with his fists. Suitable opponents were hard to find, and the great man went along, to try this prisoner out. As a result, John Gully's debts were paid, and he found himself at liberty, matched against his benefactor. The • news spread, the

law took a hand, and the first date chosen had to be abandoned. When the fight did take place, it proved worth waiting. for.

One of the most famous in the history of the Ring, it was seen by Byron, provided a lifelong topic for the Duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV, and earned a rebuke for the industrious Creevey. " You're a damned good fellow," gasped the Chicken, when Gully's friends had forced him to retire, in the fifty-ninth round. " I'm hard put to it to stand. You're the only man that ever stood up to me."

Extraordinary though it sounds, to modern ears, Gully only fought twice after this, his opponent on each occasion being the Lancastrian, Bob Gregson. Gregson was a huge man, far heavier and stronger than Cul'y, but he was nothing like as skilful ; and each time the boxer won. In the second fight Gully served Gregson as he pleased, finally knocking him senseless. With so little to go on, it is, as Mr. Darwin says, difficult to assess Gully as a boxer : but he must have been pretty good. He fought his last fight with an injured left arm, and yet was so confident of success that he turned aside from his new safe business as innkeeper and bet heavily on himself with his own_ money ; and this meant a good deal, since between his first fight and his second things had gone hardly with him.

After this success Gully never looked back. _ His inn, the Plough, was doing well. The Ring still fascinated him :

he acted sometimes as second, and later as umpire. But he was looking around for something with greater possibilities. He chose the Turf. . A brief experience as backer was enough : Gully turned " leg," or bookmaker, and owner. In 1827 he was able to pay £4,000 for Mameluke, his first famous horse, and to lose ten times that sum when, owing to sharp Practice at the starting gate, the uncertain-tempered horse was beaten in the St. Leger. The Turf in those days was rotten with villainy, of which Mr. Darwin gives a most enter- taining account. • .Gully, looking shrewdly, about him, decided to make terms with the adversary,, and concluded an alliance John Gtilfy and H1i3 Times. 13y Beiiiard Datwiri: (Cassell. 7s. ed.) '-

with the ruffian, one Ridsdale, whose, machinations had caused his defeat. The alliance did not last long. Double-

crossed, Gully took a horsewhip to his associate, who sued , him for assault and got poo damages. And so the life_ went on, the ex-prizefighter using his wits instead of his fists, hi; horses winning, his bets successful, his position yearly growing stronger, a prosperous citizen of that hard-living world where moved Squire Osbaldestone, " Lord George," Old Crutch

Robinson, Ikey Pig, " The Gas," Jemmy Hirst, who hunted . on a bull, and Windham Smith, son of Sidney, who

" . . finding himself next the Bishop of London . . . tried to adapt his conversation to his neighbour and asked him how long he really thought it would take to get Nebuchadnezzar into fah condition after bringing him up from grass."

It was a wonderful world. Osbaldestone for a bet rode two hundred miles in eight hours forty-two minutes. Three young men, after a hard day's shooting, set off at a minute's notice to walk nearly a hundred miles in their evening clothes. Lord Eglinton matched himself to drink champagne against Sir David Baird. He set a terrific pace, " hoping to choke his adversary before the first three bottles were consumed. He also carried on a sparkling conversation while his opponent said nothing and stuck dourly to his task. The pace told suddenly ; Lord Eglinton turned deadly pale and said he could no more. His conqueror then played three games of billiards with the Squire (Osbaldestone), won two of them, and was riding on the heath early next morning smoking a short black pipe."

Gully entered Parliament in 1832 as Member for Ponte- fract. He was re-elected in 1836, did not stand in 1837, stood and was beaten in 1841. He said little in the House, but what he did say was very much to the point. Once beaten, he did not try to get in again, but went his way, adding- to his resources, acquiring a colliery, and earning a universal respect. He won the Derby three times in all, and died, full of years and honours, in 1863.

Mr. Darwin says that, it is hard to arrive at Gully's character : but a very definite figure emerges from his pages. " There are as many feuds, factions, prejudices, pedantic .

notions in the Fancy," observed Hazlitt, " as in the State or the schools. Mr. Gully is almost the only cool sensible man among them, who exercises an unbiased discretion, and is not a slave to his passions in these matters." Gully fought a rough world with its own weapons, but with rather more honesty and scruple than was necessary to maintain an honourable reputation. He enjoyed no great popularity, for he lacked charm, yet men liked him, and, as we read, we like him too. It is a pity there are no more of his letters. The two written to his daughter show another side from that which he turned to Epsom and Newmarket.

There is no need at this time of day to say how attractively and how companionably Mr. Darwin writes. There is much to admire in this unassuming history, and nothing to wish away. The reader is always respected, and, where facts are in doubt, is given the evidence and left to make up his mind. Not that Mr. Darwin lacks decision or hides his preferences.

He comes down cleanly, on the charitable side of the fence, and his touch is none the less sure for being light. He uses one curious trick, the occasional insertion of a comma between subject and verb : " Eighteen hundred and forty-four, had thus begun gloriously . . . " ; but his writing has the wit, the mellow ease and grace, of good talk after good victuals. This is a book to re-read and cherish ; and those far Corinthians, wild they meet it, might well leave off their Elysian avocations to give it a round of cheers.