air things that even peers are proud to have those
invested therewith by their sides; others came in their own gigs, driving
their own bits of blood, and I heard one say: 'I have driven through at a
heat the whole hundred and eleven miles, and only stopped to bait twice.'
Oh, the blood-horses of old England! but they, too, have had their
day--for everything beneath the sun there is a season and a time. But
the greater number come just as they can contrive; on the tops of
coaches, for example; and amongst these there are fellows with dark
sallow faces and sharp shining eyes; and it is these that have planted
rottenness in the core of pugilism, for they are Jews, and, true to their
kind, have only base lucre in view.

It was fierce old Cobbett, I think, who first said that the Jews first
introduced bad faith amongst pugilists. He did not always speak the
truth, but at any rate he spoke it when he made that observation. Strange
people the Jews--endowed with every gift but one, and that the highest,
genius divine--genius which can alone make of men demigods, and elevate
them above earth and what is earthy and grovelling; without which a
clever nation--and, who more clever than the Jews?--may have Rambams in
plenty, but never a Fielding nor a Shakespeare. A Rothschild and a
Mendoza, yes--but never a Kean nor a Belcher.

So the bruisers of England are come to be present at the grand fight
speedily coming off; there they are met in the precincts of the old town,
near the field of the chapel, planted with tender saplings at the
restoration of sporting Charles, which are now become venerable elms, as
high as many a steeple; there they are met at a fitting rendezvous, where
a retired coachman, with one leg, keeps an hotel and a bowling-green. I
think I now see them upon the bowling-green, the men of renown, amidst
hundreds of people with no renown at all, who gaze upon them with timid
wonder. Fame, after all, is a glorious thing, though it lasts only for a
day. There's Cribb, the champion of England, and perhaps the best man in
England; there he is, with his huge massive figure, and face wonderfully
like that of a lion. There is Belcher, the younger, not the mighty one,
who is gone to his place, but the Teucer Belcher, the most scientific
pugilist that ever entered a ring, only wanting strength to be, I won't
say what. He appears to walk before me now, as he did that evening, with
his white hat, white greatcoat, thin gen