Russell, The Out-of-door life of the Rev. John Russell (1878)
(pp35) Prize-fighting was then the order of the day ; and a set-to between two professionals of celebrity would bring together men of all ranks, patricians and proletarians, from the most remote parts of England, to witness what it would have been heresy then to call a barbarous exhibition. The vale of Bicester, being on the borders of two counties, was a convenient rendezvous for such encounters ; and thither, on the occasion of a grand fight, the University would pour forth its legion of gownsmen ; some betting heavily on the event, and some, chiefly amateurs in boxing, going there for the sole purpose of taking a first-class lesson in the “noble art of self-defence.”
(pp36) For such ruffianism, however, Russell had no taste ; nor, skilled though he was in sparring, could he ever be induced to ride even so far as Bicester to witness a prize-fight.
“No!” he would say to Denne and others pressing him to accompany them, “if I do get on a horse, it shall be to see a hound with his natural enemy, a fox, before him — a crosscountry fight, not one in a ring.”
Still, the Greeks of Homer’s song never enjoyed the display of athletic skill more emphatically than John Russell; for, when a “turn at wrastling” was about to be played between Cann and Polkinghorn — the champions respectively of Devon and Cornwall — he has ridden a hundred miles in a day to see the manly game come off. Then, if Cann, his compatriot, proved successful in giving his adversary a fair back-fall. I.e., in bringing three points of his back to the earth without touching it with his limbs, every star in the sky would have cheered him on his long ride home ; ay, and he would not have failed to describe every feature of the “play” for months afterwards, with sparkling comment and unflagging zest.
Prize-fighting, indeed, popular as it was during the first quarter of the present century, never appears to have taken the same hold of the public mind in Devon and Cornwall as it did in other parts of the United Kingdom.
(pp37) The worthies of those counties adhered, with better taste, to their ancient and manly game of wresthng, which they rightlv regarded as testing to the utmost the strength, skill, and courage of the combatants ; but, at the same time, exhibiting none of the brutality that invariably characterized every pugilistic encounter.
During the summer season, but especially at that period of it between the hay and corn harvest, when the cereals were assuming a golden hue, and the orchards bending under their burden of fruit, there was scarcely a large village in the West which did not offer its prizes, and enjoy annually the time-honoured spectacle of a game at wrestling, the players coming from all parts to contend for the mastery.
I have heard Russell relate that, on a certain Sunday while at church in Cornwall, he saw a man posted just outside the churchyard gate ; six silver spoons were stuck into the band of his hat, and there he stood, shouting at the top of his voice: ” Plaize to tak’ notiss. Thaise zix zilver spunes to be wrastled vor next Thursday, at Poughill, and all gen’lemen wrastlers will receive fair play.” The man, with the spoons in his hat, then entered the church, went up into the “singing gallery,” and hung it on a peg, from which it was perfectly visible to the parson and the greater part of his congregation.
Russell, The Out-of-door life of the Rev. John Russell (1878). First Edition 1878, New Edition 1883. Reprinted with illustrations by N. H. J. Baird, 1902. pp.35-38. Available online, via Archive. org.