After this battle with Deaf Burke, Bendigo was given a champion’s belt by Jem Ward, and for a year he remained undisputed Champion of England. In March of 1840, however, whilst skylarking and turning somersaults at some military steeplechases at Nottingham, he slipped his knee-cap and was told by his doctor that he would never be able to run or fight again. For two years he had to remain in retirement. During this time Burke tried to assert himself as champion, but was beaten by Nick Ward, and shortly afterwards died of consumption. Ward won on a foul from Ben Caunt, who, however, came back on him and thrashed him in forty-seven minutes. Then Bendigo, who had taken the utmost care of his injured knee, considered himself strong enough to win the championship back.

But first of all he came from Nottingham to London and practised with the gloves for a time. He then challenged Tass Parker for ￡200 a side. A match was arranged, but on the eve of it Bendigo was arrested and clapped into jail, and the forfeit money was paid to Parker. The evidence with regard to this arrest is somewhat conflicting. There is no doubt at all but that it was made at the instance of Bendigo’s elder brother, John Thompson: the reason generally given being that he was afraid lest Bendigo should injure his knee again. “Thormanby,” however, assures us that John’s motive was his abhorrence of the Ring. The Thompsons were a family of quite marked respectability: one of their uncles had been a dissenting minister.... Brother John was a well-to-do manufacturer, of the most unctuous rectitude, and there were two great troubles in his comfortable life. One was his prize-fighting and disreputable brother William 94 and the second, sad to tell, was his mother. Mrs. Thompson was not at all the sort of person that you would anticipate in such a family. How she came to be the mother of John (and of other respectable children) passes comprehension. And Bendigo loved her dearly, and she was intensely proud of him. But she was so “coarse,” so violent—a big, jolly, generous creature. On the days when he was fighting Ben Caunt she would sit in her kitchen and listen to the clock ticking, and she would declare that it always ticked “Ben-dy Ben-dy.” “By Gosh,” she said, “if it’d ticked ‘Ben Caunt,’ I’d have oop and smashed its blasted face for it.” And we can see her, sitting there, comfortable, with her hair loose and untidy, her face red, big-mouthed, gap-toothed, with dark, small eyes, immoderately buxom—a jewel of a woman.

After some negotiation (which in the ‘forties of last century were almost as long drawn out and as exasperating as the corresponding negotiations of to-day) a third battle between Bendigo and Ben Caunt was finally arranged for ￡200 a side and the belt. This encounter was fought out, after principals and expectant onlookers had been hounded by the police from two different places, at Sutfield Green in Oxfordshire.

Now this battle with Ben Caunt has been branded as the most disgraceful affair in all the annals of the Ring, but it is representative of its period, and as such must be described.

Bendigo had been trained at Crosby, near Liverpool; Caunt at Hatfield, to which place Tom Spring used constantly to come from London to see how the big fellow was getting on. Caunt was now thirty-three, and before he began training he weighed 18 stone. During that very arduous process he reduced himself to 14 stone, without actually injuring himself. Bendigo was three years older and only 12 stone 1 lb. Both men entered the ring in fine condition. There were about 10,000 spectators with a remarkably strong leaven of roughs from Nottingham. These gentry came armed with bludgeons and yelled for Bendigo. The betting immediately before the fight was chiefly in the proportion of 6-4 on Ben Caunt.

The men came with their seconds to the scratch and, following 95 the old custom, all four crossed hands in the middle of the ring, the seconds presently retiring to their corners, leaving the antagonists facing one another. Caunt had won the toss for corners, and had his back to the sun. There was a good deal of difficulty about the choice of a referee, and at last much against his own personal inclination, Mr. Osbaldiston—“The Old Squire,” as he was everywhere called—consented to act. Bendigo walked a little lame, but his activity in the ring was not much impaired. Right foot foremost, he crouched with his left shoulder held high in an exceedingly awkward and ungainly position: but his jaw was thus well protected from Caunt’s mighty right. The giant, on the other hand, stood nearly square with both arms well out in the manner of Bill Neate. Bendigo, as befitted the smaller man, circled round, looking for an opening and biding his time. Caunt pivoted about slowly in order to face him. Each time he went round Bendigo got nearer and nearer to his man by imperceptible stages. Then at last Caunt let go, and Bendigo, who had deliberately drawn the blow, ducked it and sent in a heavy counter to his opponent’s eye. For an instant the big man’s face expressed rage and ferocity, and then he grinned. There was always something about Bendigo which made folk laugh. He was ever a merry-andrew, always playing the goat; you couldn’t help but grin even when he hurt you. And then in the next minute he had hit again, this time with a tremendous left which reopened an old scar, and Caunt bled profusely. He lumbered in, trying to land a blow on the smaller man: but Bendigo ducked and dodged and sidestepped and avoided them all.

In the third round Caunt managed to catch hold of his opponent and threw him. But although his training had not exactly hurt him, his strength was not at its greatest, and Bendigo’s speed quite overwhelmed him. He hit him as he liked, smashed his face with left and right, and would get away without a reply: then lest the reply turned out to be belated but sure, Bendigo would slip down.

Once Caunt caught him up against the ropes and leaned on him there, and would most likely have hurt him seriously, but 96 that he ove............