Unequal fights always engage both our sympathy and our interest, and Tom Sayers was hardly ever matched with a man of anything at all near his own height and weight. William Perry, commonly called the Tipton Slasher, from the place of his birth in the Black Country, was Champion of England. He had fought ten big battles and had beaten good men, including Tass Parker twice. He had held the championship for four years when Sayers challenged him.

It was looked upon as an absurd match. Sayers was a lightish middleweight of 5 feet 8 inches. The Slasher now weighed about 14 stone and stood over 6 feet. He laughed at Sayers’s challenge. He was utterly confident, knowing that he was bigger, stronger, and heavier, and believing that he was the better boxer. Nevertheless, Sayers found backing, and on June 16th, 1857, they fought for ￡200 a side and the belt.

These were the days when it was not sufficient in the interests of sport merely to pitch a ring on the boundary of two, or possibly three, counties, so that while the magistrates of one county might interfere, the principals and their followers had only to slip over the border into the next. In the fifties, and earlier, the law was much more stringently enforced, and vast expeditions used to leave London by special train to destinations unknown. In the present instance, an enormous crowd packed the train at Fenchurch Street Station. Tom Sayers was on it, but disguised, in case the police, who knew perfectly who the combatants were, searched the train. William Perry was picked up at Tilbury on the journey eastwards. At Southend the crowd left the train and embarked on a steamer which proceeded to mid-channel, and then altering 103 her course, put down her freight of sportsmen, fighters, and ruffians at the Isle of Grain. Two more steamers now arrived, and a ring was made, out of sight of the river, in a field beneath a dyke. The first stake had hardly been driven in, when the police appeared—in what to us, now, would seem the picturesque costume of blue coats, white trousers, and glazed toppers. The crowd of 3000 men rapidly re-embarked in the waiting steamers, and the two boxers, hidden like leaves in a forest, escaped. They crossed the river, and, disembarking once more on the Kentish coast, were so lucky as to find a sporting farmer who gladly let the officials have the use of one of his fields in return for a place at the ring-side, which was joyfully awarded him. Here, behind the farm buildings, which hid the proceedings from passing ships, the ring was once more pegged out: the colours were tied to the stakes, blue with large white spots for Sayers, blue birds’ eye for the Slasher. The two men were each seconded by old opponents who had become friends; Nat Langham and Bill Hayes in Sayers’s corner, Tass Parker and Jack Macdonald in Perry’s.

People said that there had been nothing like this since the days of Johnson and Perrins. For the Tipton Slasher was a magnificent giant, with the enormous shoulder-blades which stand for hard hitting, though a slight deformity in one leg had given him the nickname of “Old K Legs.” But there was not an ounce of tallow on him. He was thirty-eight years of age, and looked more, for all his front upper teeth had been knocked out and his face was covered with the scars of old wounds. Little Tom Sayers was neatly built, clean-limbed, and in superb condition, but every one present when they saw the two standing up, facing one another, wondered how, with his comparatively short reach, he was going to hit the Slasher at all.

There are two ways of beginning a fight, and Perry chose the wrong one. Directly they had shaken hands and their seconds had retired to their respective corners he lunged out, aiming a tremendous hit and wasted it on the air. Not once nor twice did he misjudge his distance and throw away his strength in this manner, while Sayers nimbly jumped aside, or back, leading him 104 round the ring. The Slasher was furious. “Coom and fight me,” he said. “Don’t ’ee go skirling about like a bloody dancing master.” And Tom laughed at him. He knew perfectly well what he was about. He would make the giant tire himself out and then he would hit him at his own leisure. The Slasher, on the other hand, believed that one hit from him—one really good hit such as he alone could deliver—would finish his little opponent, and he tried again and again to put in such a blow. At first Tom Sayers was content to avoid them and leave well alone, but after a while he saw a perfect opening as he slipped his............