tom sayers and the benicia boy

the fight between tom sayers, champion of england, and heenan, the giant american, was about the last conspicuous affair with bare knuckles fit for place in any history of the prize-ring. there were, no doubt, good bye-battles, but there is no record of them as such. from first to last, in the oldest days of all, just as to-day, we look to championship contests for representative form—and seldom find it. one or both of the champions may be as good men as it is possible to find, but the show that they put up when pitted against each other is frequently poor when compared to the performance of a couple of “unknowns.” but this battle, viewed from various angles, was a good one.

tom sayers, champion of england, was challenged by the american, heenan, who came over with a bevy of supporters. the fight was arranged to take place on tuesday, april 17th, 1860; but the utmost secrecy had to be preserved in order to avoid the police.

the following paragraph appeared in the times for april 2nd (this was before the days of sensational and prominent headlines, and the reader had to search for the news which interested him):—

“the forthcoming prize-fight.—hertford, saturday. this afternoon colonel archibald robertson, chief constable of the hertfordshire police force, made application to the justices assembled in petty session at hertford for a warrant to apprehend thomas sayers, the ‘champion of england,’ 108 and john heenan, the american pugilist, in order that they might be bound over to keep the peace....”

the gallant colonel failed to apprehend the delinquents, and at 4 a.m. on the great day an enormous special train steamed, under sealed orders, as it were, out of london bridge station, carrying about a thousand people, which number was more than trebled on the field of battle. this was at farnborough, near aldershot. the actual meadow was cunningly chosen, for it was practically surrounded by double hedges and ditches, and was a difficult place to come at in a hurry: the idea in the minds of the organisers being that if any body of men did try to interfere, due notice would be given of the fact to the principals and officials.

the fight began at 7.25 in the morning. a twenty-four foot ring was formed. the men shook hands, and tossed for corners, heenan winning and naturally choosing the slight advantage of the higher side in a gently sloping space and a position which put the sun in his antagonist’s eyes. the american was the first to strip, and was seen to be an enormous fellow, 6 feet 2 inches in height, with very long arms, a fine deep chest, and perfectly trained. he combined with these magnificent proportions much grace and freedom of movement. sayers had a good look at his man, nodded his head quietly, and then stripped himself. he was only 5 feet 8 inches. his chest was not specially broad or thick, nor did his arms give the appearance of unusual development. only his shoulders suggested where his wonderful hitting power came from. but he was a hard little man, and he, too, was in perfect condition. on the face of it, and to those spectators who were unacquainted with sayers’s previous performances or the history of the ring (with its records of tom johnson and jem belcher), it appeared once again to be an absurd match. heenan towered over his man and seemed to be about twice his size in every dimension.

they took up their positions, and laughed at each other as they moved round, each man to his right in order to avoid the other’s right hand. then heenan led and just reached sayers’s 109 mouth, getting a hard reply which, amidst loud applause, drew first blood. they sparred for a little longer and then closed, when sayers, as they used to say in these days, “got down easily.” a man was not allowed by the rules to go down without a blow, except in a close, in order to avoid punishment.

their seconds sponged them down, gave them water to rinse their mouths with, and they came up again. this time they were quicker to work. sayers looked at his huge adversary with perfect confidence in himself, and the coolness of long experience and a great capacity. mere size troubled him not at all. he had fought and beaten big men before. heenan led and led again and then a third time, but on each occasion sayers threw back his head, and all three blows fell lightly. then the big man got closer and sent home one on the mouth which made the english champion reel. but he returned at once to receive a whack on the forehead which knocked him down in his own corner. this, the first knock-down, did not trouble him in the least, though the americans at the ring-side naturally shouted their delight.

after the half-minute sayers came up quite fresh, though he had a big lump coming up on his forehead and his mouth was swollen. his footwork was brilliant. he nipped in and out, avoiding the long arms and always, when a blow did land, managed to be on the retreat, so that its force was lessened. but the sun shining in his eyes was a trouble, and he frowned and tried to work heenan round so that he had his share of it. heenan, however, grinned, and held his ground. then tom sayers darted in to plant a hard body-blow, but caught a severe right which knocked him down. once more sayers tried to get out of the sun, and failing, closed and slipped down.

by this time he was a good deal marked, and there was a severe cut over his eyebrow. both remained excessively cautious, and all at once the humour of it seized them and they put down their hands and roared with laughter, again—small wonder it is that foreigners used to think us a race of madmen, until—that is—the french began to play the same game. (only for the most part, the french take boxing very, very seriously.) 110 suddenly heenan steadied himself and shot out a straight left which fairly caught the champion and, for the fourth time, knocked him down. a large number of the spectators believed that sayers was a beaten man. for a large number of them had not seen him fight before, and had no idea how much he could take. more experienced ring-goers watched, patiently suspending judgment. and presently the inexperienced folk were startled. heenan sent out a smashing blow which sayers entirely avoided, jumping right back from it, instantly bounding in again and delivering a terrific blow on his man’s eye. it was one of those sliding, upward hits which almost split the american’s cheek before it reached his brow, and it sent heenan staggering away.

the rest did little to improve his appearance. he was bleeding profusely, swollen and disfigured. sayers was getting comfortably set. he stopped a hard lead with his forearm, and dashing in, dealt out a harder one; and then another which seemed almost to crush heenan’s nose and very nearly lifted him off his legs. five-foot eight and six-foot two. not bad going.

in the seventh round, sayers hit heenan an awful blow which sent the blood spurting from his nose. heenan grabbed hold of his man to put an end to this punishment, and sayers got in some damaging body-blows before he fell underneath.

“as well as can be expected,” thought sayers to himself. yes: he was doing very nicely, but he was not quite as happy as he looked. how long would it be before heenan or his seconds spotted the truth. hadn’t they noticed yet that he was extremely shy of hitting with his right—had been shy for the last two rounds? and in his previous battles it was his right upon which he had depended for victory. one really good right-hander from sayers was commonly reckoned to be enough for anybody. but he couldn’t use his right now. he had tried and it was useless. that tremendous whack that he had stopped with his forearm had numbed it at the moment, and he had thought nothing of it until he tried to use it in offence. and then he knew that his right was out of action. he thought at the time that the bone was broken. as a matter of fact it was not, 111 but a tendon was, which (for such intensely practical purposes) was just as bad. the arm was also one mass of inter-running bruises and fearfully swollen. so he held it across his chest in its orthodox position, and it was all he could do to keep it there: and he kept his face wooden and innocent and went on fighting with his left. the enemy shouldn’t know before they must.

and round after round the little man came up smiling, relying on his feet for defence and his left for attack. heenan also grinned. they were a good-humoured couple, as these couples of the prize-ring so often were. once he landed a horribly severe smasher on heenan which knocked him down, and instead of taking his rest for half a minute, he went prying into heenan’s corner to watch his seconds wiping away the blood. he might learn something in that way, he thought, which would be more valuable than thirty seconds on an another fellow’s knee. heenan, however, could take plenty of punishment, too, without complaining.

after this they fought a tremendous round which lasted nearly a quarter of an hour, and at the end were so exhausted that both of them had to be carried to their corners by their respective seconds. it had been foolish, sayers now realised, not to take the rest he was entitled to. he must not play tricks like that again. he was greatly knocked about. his mouth and nose seemed as though they had been knocked into one, but his trick of throwing back his head as heenan’s huge fist caught him had done much to preserve his eyes.

only once did he show a sign of anger. he drew back after a rally to spit out blood, and the american onlookers laughed. that stung him, and he dashed in again and gave heenan a left which sent him reeling back, and another and another. a fourth hit made heenan reel where he stood, so that with his right to follow up with sayers might have knocked him out of time. as it was, he dared not come too close, for he feared being thrown upon his bad arm. but he shot out his left twice more, and one on heenan’s ribs sounded (so said the times correspondent) “all over the meadow as if a box had been smashed in.” blows 112 given with boxing gloves which sound loud and draw involuntary “oh’s!” from the spectators usually mean nothing at all. but sounding blows with a naked fist, particularly on the body, may mean a good deal.

now sayers could no longer raise his arm, and it hung limp at his side. fortunately for him, heenan was not an adept in the use of his own right. it was maddening to him to stand there and hit and hit again and to be able to make so little apparent impression on a man so much smaller and with but one arm in action. and heenan was now a terrible sight. his face looked as though it were gashed with deep wounds, and indeed sayers’s sharp knuckles had lacerated the skin and the american was bleeding terribly. and then he managed to land a very hard left, which he shot in over sayers’s awkward left-handed guard, and the champion was knocked down. then heenan in the next round picked his man clean off his legs and threw him. and immediately afterwards they were both laughing at each other, neither in derision nor affectation. it was a rare fight, and good fun in its somewhat rough way, and worth laughing over. but one of the american’s eyes was now completely closed. and he was getting hard put to it to see. but he knocked sayers down once more.

up and at it again. sayers hit his opponent with tremendous force, and heenan closed and then for the first and only time, forgetting his arm for the moment, sayers exerted himself and threw the giant down. and he kept cool, watched his opportunities, and gave no chances. nevertheless, the twenty-first and twenty-second rounds ended in his being knocked sprawling on the grass.

heenan was fast going blind, and his backers yelled to him to keep sayers in the sun and to throw him. with those shouts of encouragement in his ears he dashed at the champion and planted a tremendous body-blow which knocked him down and nearly beat the senses out of him.

it was at about this time that several of the police found their way through the crowd and began to come near the ring. but 113 the huge crowd did their utmost to make that approach a difficult one. sayers was getting weak, heenan blind. it was really a race between the one failing and the other. once when sayers retreated fast round the ring with his man after him, heenan managed to catch him and close and hit him when on the ground. cries of “foul!” went up, but the referee ruled that the blow was “struck in the heat of fighting” and was not to be regarded as a foul. that excuse would not “wash,” as they say, nowadays.

drawn by g. sharples engd. by percy roberts.

tom spring.

heenan’s sight became worse, and once in his own corner he gave his own second a stinger in mistake for sayers. in the thirty-ninth round he got sayers’s head under his left arm when in a corner. he was too weak to hit him severely whilst “in chancery,” but leant upon the stake and held on to sayers as though trying to strangle him. the champion could not move his head, try and pull and twist it as he would, but with a great effort he got his left free and from his awkward position planted a couple of blows. heenan then twisted round so that sayers’s neck was tight against the upper rope, and he leaned hard on it. the englishman gradually grew black in the face, and it was evident that he could not breathe. both the umpires called out, “cut the rope,” and this was promptly done. by the rules they should have directed the seconds to separate the men, but no doubt they believed that this method was, in the circumstances, hardly quick enough. the police at this moment appeared at the broken ring-side, and the crowd surged in, leaving only as much room as the men could stand up in face to face. each now knocked the other down, and then the police stopped the fight.

heenan’s sight was bad and he had to be led away by the hand; but both he and sayers walked quite steady; sayers declaring that he could have gone on for another hour.

the fight had lasted for two hours and twenty minutes and the result was declared a draw.

we are always brought up to believe that sayers would have won without any sort of doubt at all if they had been allowed to go on for a few minutes longer. naturally enough, that is the 114 popular view, and the one promulgated (to quote a voice that, so to put it, is still heard) by william makepeace thackeray.

“i think,” he wrote in the cornhill, “i think it is a most fortunate event for the brave heenan ... that the battle was a drawn one. the advantage was all on mr. sayers’s side.... now when the ropes were cut from that death-grip, and sir thomas released, the gentleman of benicia was confessedly blind of one eye, and speedily afterwards was blind of both. could mr. sayers have held out for three minutes, for five minutes, for ten minutes more? he says he could.”

thackeray is generally supposed to have been present at this fight and indeed was reported so by at least one newspaper. in this article in the cornhill, he denies it, though in a somewhat involved fashion. his indignation in the matter was much more forcibly expressed in punch for april 28th, 1860, to which he contributed (anonymously):—

the fight of sayerius and heenanus

a lay of ancient london

(supposed to be recounted to his great-grandchildren, april 17th, a.d. 1920, by an ancient gladiator)

“... what know ye, race of milksops,

untaught of the p. r.

what stopping, lunging, countering,

fibbing or rallying are?

what boots to use the lingo,

when you have not the thing?

how paint to you the glories

of belcher, cribb, or spring—

115 to you, whose sire turns up his eyes

at mention of the ring?

*****

then each his hand stretched forth to grasp,

his foeman’s fives in friendly clasp;

each felt his balance trim and true—

each up to square his mauleys threw;

each tried his best to draw his man—

the feint, the dodge, the opening plan,

till left and right sayerius tried:

heenanus’s grin proclaimed him wide;

he shook his nut, a lead essayed,

nor reached sayerius’s watchful head.

at length each left is sudden flung,

we heard the ponderous thud,

and from each tongue the news was wrung,

sayerius hath “first blood!”

adown heenanus’s roman nose

freely the tell-tale claret flows,

while stern sayerius’s forehead shows

that in the interchange of blows

heenanus’s aim was good!

again each iron mauley swung,

and loud the counter-betting rung,

till breathless all, and wild with blows,

fiercely they grappled for a close;

a moment in close hug they swing

hither and thither round the ring,

then from heenanus’s clinch of brass

sayerius smiling slips to grass!

... in each succeeding round

sayerius smiling came,

with head as cool and wind as sound,

as his first moment on the ground,

116 still confident and game.

how from heenanus’s sledge-like fist,

striving a smasher to resist,

sayerius’s stout right arm gave way,

yet the maimed hero still made play....

fain would i shroud the tale in night,—

the meddling blues that thrust in sight,—

the ring-keepers o’erthrown;—

the broken ring—the cumbered fight,—

heenanus’s sudden, blinded flight,—

sayerius pausing, as he might,

just when ten minutes used aright

had made the fight his own!

alas! e’en in those brighter days

we still had beaks and blues,—

still, canting rogues, their mud to fling

on self-defence and on the ring,

and fistic arts abuse!

and ‘twas such varmint had the power

the champion’s fight to stay,

and leave unsettled to this hour

the honours of the day!...”

well, never mind about the canting rogues: we have seen thackeray’s opinion of the men’s chances and the popular opinion. let us now see what may be said on the other side.

a few days afterwards a correspondent, signing himself “heavy-weight,” wrote to the times pointing out that heenan’s behaviour in the thirty-ninth round was fair by the rules,3 though the rules were quite unnecessarily barbaric. he goes on to show that heenan’s partisans were in the proportion of one to every ten of sayers’s, and that the american had not been fairly treated. 117 “if,” he says, “the english party, the stronger, had been anxious that the fight should go on, i think the doctrine of probabilities leads us to suppose that it would have gone on; if the american party, the weaker, fearing their man would be beaten, had wished it to be stopped, i think the same doctrine points out to us that their wishes would not, in all probability, have been gratified.”

and when we remember that the police first appeared on the outskirts of the crowd, just at a time when sayers was getting a good deal the worst of it, and a very long time before they finally forced their way to the ring-side, and that they did so just at the moment when sayers was under heenan’s arm, we are bound to admit the force of “heavy-weight’s” contention. it is quite possible that sayers would have won the fight if it had been allowed to continue, but i don’t fancy that his backers thought so.

it is interesting to know that after this battle the editor of the times received many anonymous contributions to a testimonial for sayers. the amounts received varied from a shilling’s worth of stamps to notes for ￡25, and many of the subscribers wrote to say they had never seen a prize-fight, but desired to express their gratification at the splendid courage of the champion in defending the belt.