The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-04 00:00:00

BEENAN AND ISIS BEL7'.

As we anticipated, Mr. 'Wilkes, of the Spirit of the Times,
has changed his tune on the arrival of Heenan in America.
The worthy editor is riled that
" Back to those expectant shores"
Heenan has " returned without the Belt." We are not
sorry that such has been the case. The friends, or rather
those who speculated in the rival champions, mismanaged
the whole concern from first to last, and the ridiculous
Yankee fancy of reciprocal presentations of sham cham-
pions' belts (for although of equal value they represented
nothing but the empty-headedness of those who called them
into existence) has ended in a bottle of smoke, and the oft
presented belts are destined to grace the studio of Mr.
Morris, as a memento of the failure of his presentation
speculation. Bell's Life makes the following remarks on
the subject :

In Wilkes' s Spirit of the Times, announcing the return
of John C. Heenan to America, we find several statements
by the editor, which we cannot but fancy are deliberately
intended to mislead the American fancy. In the first place
he grumbles that Heenan was permitted to go from our
shores without a belt, and secondly without the English
testimonials which he had been offered. On these points
we have only to say, firstly, that, if Heenan did not get his
belt, Sayers was in no better predicament. Mr. Wilkes
knows as well as we do, if not better (for the suggestion was
his own), that the arrangement between Sayers and Heenan
was, that if Sayers would raise a subscription among hif
friends to present Heenan with a belt, Heenan would per-
form a similar office for Sayers. This arrangement
was not carried out strictly, for the following
reasons :—Directly it became known to certain gentle-
men connected with an American circus that the mer.
had amicably settled their differences, an applica-
tion was made by them to Sayers and Heeraan to
enter into an engagement with them at Z 255 a week
each to appear at the Alhambra and elsewhere with their
new belts, An application was made to us to get the belts
made at once, and, thanks to the exertions of Mr. Hancock,
they were manufactured with marvellous rapidity. They
were presented, as our reader& know, at the Alhambra ;
but Sayers and Heenan not having raised sufficient to pay
for thorn, Mr. Morris, one of the speculators, advanced the
balance for that purpose. The public, finding the belts had
been presented, naturally concluded that the subscriptions
had been made up, and no more money was forthcoming on
either side. Mr. Morris retained the belts in his own pos-
session,. and as Heenan and Sayers both refused to carry
out their engagement by paying the difference themselves,
why the belts still remain with Morris. Secondly, as to
the testimonials, Heenan's own letters, which were pub-
lished in this country, proved that he refused to accept
them when offered, and besides this he insisted on going
home when he did, refusing liberal offers in this country,
which would have insured him silver compliments, as Mr.
Wilkes styles them, of almost equal value with those of
Sayers. Mr. Wilkes goes on to abuse the English people
because Heenan was not allowed to strangle Sayers on the
ropes, and uses ad captandem arguments to prove that
Heenan fairly won the fight, which may go down with
those for whom he writes in his own country, but which
every impartial man who saw the battle will regard with
contempt. It is not our intention to go further into the
matter, and we should not have made the above remarks
had we not deemed the statement in the Spirit too bare-
faced to be passed over. Our belief is patent to the world,
and nothing will induce us to deviate from it, that at the
finish of the fight at Farnborough, had the ring not been
broken into, Sayers would have proved the victor, as, had
the referee not been forced from the ring side during the
37th round he would, according to the rules of the ring,
have ordered the men to be separated when on the ropes
wheji it was seen that Sayers was in danger. That
Heenan afterwards struck Sayers fool is well known, as
is the fact that that worthy a few minutes after the battle
was quite blind, notwithstanding the certificate of Dr.
(?) Rawlings to the contrary. As to the severity of
the punishment on either side, the fact of Heenan's not
being able to make his appearance for a week speaks
TQWlleao