The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-30 00:00:00

The Fatal Prize Fight.

Last evening, at the Charing-cross Hospital, Mr.
Langham, the Deputy Coroner for Westminster, re-
sumed and concluded the inquest upon Edward
Wilmot, the young man who died shortly after
taking part in a sparring match at a west-end
sporting house, as detailed in The Sun. The case had
been adjourned in order that some of the persons ac-
tively engaged in the match in question should be
brought before the court, and now Inspector Silver-
ton, C Division, deposed that on Monday last a man
named Daniel Morris came to the station at Marl-
borough-mews and gave himself up as being con-
cerned in the death of Wilmot, in aiding and abet-
ting in the prize-fight on the 9th inst. The witness
also produced a card given him by Wm. Shaw, the
landlord of the Queen's Head, Great Windmill-street,
on the 10th. Witness asked Shaw on the 10th if a
prize fight did not take place in his house on the pre-
vious evening, and he said one commenced there, but
it ended in Waterloo-place, as he turned them out.
The card he afterwards gave witness was as follows:
—"Prince of Wales Athletic Club, established and
holden every Tuesday and Saturday evening. M.U.
Jemmy Shaw himself, assisted by Little Alec and
several other first rate professors. On Tuesday next,
Oct. 9, 1866, a trial of skill in the manly art between
Young (of Bloomsbury) and Ned Wilinot (of Shore-
ditch), for a handso ne purse of sovereigns presented
by a few gentlemen, patrons of the noble and manly
art of self-defence. Admission by tickets, is. each;
reserved seats, 2s. 6d. To commence at half-past 8."
James Evans, after being cautioned by the Coro-
ner, said he went in the evening to Jemmy Shaw's,
in Broad-court, where he saw the deceased, who said
to witness, " Nutts" (the name witness was known
by), " I want you to second me in a fight," and wit-
ness, after some conversation, agreed with another
man to do as deceased desired. They all then went
together to Wm. Shaw's, in Queen's Head-court, a
house kept by the son of the pugilist known asJernmy
Shaw. Deceased and another man named Young
then went into the ring together and sparred with
gloves on for an hour or an hour anda half, witness
and a man named Donnelly acting as seconds for
deceased, two men named Morris and Dawes, the
first named a pugilist, the other a coke merchant, act-
ing in the same capacity for Young. A man named
Flynn acted as timekeeper. Witness could not say
whether Shaw, the landlord, was or was not present
during the fighting. Witness thtis described the actual
fighting: "I can't say much violence was used. My
boy was licking the other, and it was £lOO to a
shilling whether the other could touch him. I went
to Young's father and told him he had better call his
boy to give up, but he called out to his boy to go on.
Just after then Young gave my boy a blow with the
glove on the jaw and knocked him over, and he
struck his head against a post. The people did not
call out to stop the fight, as there was nothing un-
fair, and on my going up to my boy I found his
head on his chest. I called out that the fight was
over, giving in on my boy's behalf, and then I gave
him some brandy. He said he felt very ill, and in
half an hour's time I brought him in a cab to the
hospital." In reply to Mr. Lewis the witness said
he had sparred himself, and he could say that there
was nothing but fair sparring all the evening. The
tw.o young fellows were in good spirits, and were
laughing and joking together. Witness did not see
the sparring matches at the Crystal Palace, for he
was not in the habit of going to " such places." In
answer to the jury he said of course the then hit
each other no harder than they could, and matches
lasted a long time:sometimes. Witness did not know
that the two men were going to fight for a purse of
sovereigns—he believed the fight was for £2 a side.
Shaw, the landlord of the Queen's Head, was quite
aware of what was going on in his house. The man
Goode gave the deceased half a sovereign with which
to back himself. Goode hero said that he owed the
deceased half a sovereign and paid him. Witness
owned that he knew of " glove fights," stated to
the public to be for £5 a side, which were not for
money at all; and Goode was pressing these ques-
tions when the witness got so excited that the Co-
roner deemed it prudent to stop the questioning.
The Coroner then summed up the evidence, and
brought the whole case before the jury. He re-
minded them that the evidence that they had heard
showed them that the deceased was taking part in a
fight in the house of William Shaw, and no matter
where such exhibitions took place, they were illegal.
The evidence of those who were present at the
fight showed that at a certain stage of the proceed-
ings the young man's foot slipped, and he struck
his head against a piece of wood. The medi-
cal evidence showed that death was from apo-
plexy, the result of a blow or a fall, either of which
must have been caused by much violence, and
the blows struck over the head of the deceased
by the gloves would be likely to cause concus-
sion. If repeated blows were struck over the face
and head a person would be rendered unable to stand
upon his legs, and would be likely to stagger and
fall. If the jury thought the decased's death was
caused by a fall or a blow in the fight, then they
would have to consider the legal liability attached
to the persons engaged in it. " Foster's Crown
Law" laid down the following rules :--" Death
ensuing from accidents happening at sports and
recreations, such recreations being innocent and
allowable, falls within the rule of innocent lion)i-

tide," and after referring to the cases of playing at
cudgels and foils, or wrestlingby consent, continued,
with respect to misadventures, " In the case of per-
sons who in perfect friendship engaged by mu-
tual consent in any of these recreations for a trial of
skill or manhood, or for improvement in the use of
their weapons, here is, indeed, the appearance of a
combat; but it is in reality no more than a friendly
exertion of strength and dexterity for the purposes
I have mentioned, and which takes the case out of
the general rule laid down by Lord Hale, for bodily
harm was not the motive on either side. I, there-
fore, cannot call these exercises unlawful ; they are
manly diversions, they tend to give strength, skill,
activity, and may fit for defence, public as well as
private, in time of need. I would not be understood
to speak here of prize-fighting and public boxing-
matches, or any other exertions of courage, strength,
and activity of the like kind which are exhibited for
lucre, and can serve no valuable purpose ; but, on
the contrary, encourage a spirit of idleness and de-
bauchery, for these disorders will, I conceive, fall
under a quite different concern." "Last's Pleas of
the Crown" give a similar view, and it was distinctly
laid down that all engaged in these contests, which
were illegal, were liable in a case of death caused in
them to be•charged with manslaughter. If therefore
the jury found the death of the deceased arose
through the fight it was their duty to return a ver-
dict of manslaughter against the seconds, the time-
keeper, arid the landlord of the house.

The jury then retired, and, after being absent
for some time, returned into court. The Foreman
asked the Coroner if the jury thought the young
man fell without a blow whether they should then
be right in bringing in a verdict of accidental
death. The Coroner answered that they would if
they thought his fall was quite unconnected with the
blows he had previously received. But if the blows
he had received had rendered him unable to stand
upon his feet, as was suggested by the medical tes-
timony, and he then fell, the death could not be
called accidental. The jury again retired, and after
being locked up for three hours and a half, returned
into court at 10 minutes past 11 o'clock. The fore-
man then stated that 12 out of the 14 jurymen had
agreed to a verdict of manslaughter against the prin-
cipals, the seconds of the fight, and the landlord of
the house—viz., John Young, Edward Donelly,
Thomas Dawes, James Evans, Daniel Morris, and
Wm. Shaw. The coroner thenmade out his warrants
for the committal of the persons charged to New-
gate.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

-~-_-

TIMES.—A telegram from Prague conveys some
obscure intelligence of an attempt upon the life of
the Emperor of Austria. The news only reaches us
two days after the event, although the alleged of-
fence was committed in the midst of a crowd, and
the would-be assassin, whose name is not given, was
arrested in the act. The execution of the " proba-
ble design" was prevented by the presence of mind
of an Englishman, Captain Palmer. We must
await further particulars* to enable us to appreciate
the real importance of this sinister incident. In the
meanwhile the letter of our correspondent from
Prague, which we published yesterday, is well cal-
culated to prepare us for any melancholy tidings
from that city. It is written in fiat contradiction
to the accounts by which the progress of the Em-
peror Francis Joseph through his northern provinces
had been described as triumphantly successful.
" Whatever may have happened at Baunn, Olmutz,
and Troppau," we read, there seems no doubt that " at
Prague, the great and ancient city, the King of Bohe-
mia was received with such cutting coldness as would
break the heart of a British monarch." It is with
a painful sensation that we read the too vivid de-
scription of the whole scene. There seem to rise
before us " that careworn face, that sad, anxious
look, that emaciated form which could move a
generous people, even in their bitterest and most
vindictive rage, to forget the monarch in the man."
•We fancy we can see that hard-tried Sovereign
" making his appearance amid a dead silence in the
streets"—a silence so dead that, "as the carriage
passed, the click of the horses' hoofs on the stone
and the jingle of the couriers' swords were as dis-
tinctly heard as if the Emperor were alone and at
midnight. And it was midnight around him--
black, lowering, cold, and starless ; the night in
which monarchs move when the sun of their people's
love has set." There is, indeed, deep gloom gattipr-
mg round the throne of that ill-starred Francis
Joseph, and it seems as if every step he took only
plunged him deeper into his sea of troubles. Baron
von Beust, we are told, has really been placed at
the head of the Imperial Cabinet. The intelligence
of that ominous appointment, which was scouted
as too absurd to deserve credit, receives now the
fullest confirmation, and it is even asserted that the
new Foreign Minister took his oath of office at
Prague yesterday. We say nothing of the open
defiance thus hurled at Prussia and Bismark. The
Emperor is au independent Sovereign, and the choice
of his advisers is no concern of his neighbours ;
but the Emperor's subjects are not likely to share
his confidence in a man who, whatever may be his
abilities, has invariably ruined every cause he took
in hand. Baron von Beust will be looked upon as
a- stranger even by the German party at whose head
he will be placed; but his appearance in the Cabi-
net can hardly fail to be. received as a declaration
of hostilities by the rival• nationalities of Czechs,
Magyars, and Sclaves, now so irreconcilably ar-
rayed against the Government. We have seen
how the nomination of Count Goluchowsky to the
Governorship of Galicia has been like a firebrand
thrown into that province to light up the worst
passions of the Polish and Ruthenian population.
The flame of civil discord threatens the Empire on
every side ; and, as if there were not enough of Mag-
yar and German, Sclave and Saxon, and the whole
confusion of hostile races, the runaway Jesuits from
Venetia have now come for a refuge to the Emperor,
and have roused among the people of Vienna and
Prague the enmity which that holy militia seldom
fails to excite in every European community. Aus-
tria has had at all times a great many friends in this
country. Since the cession of Venetia, we will ven-
ture to say, she has hardly an enemy. Iris difficult
to withhold sympathy from a Sovereign the butt of
such constant and undeserved adversity. But to
suggest an escape for him out of his present difficul-
ties seems a task beyond the power of man. Austria
is an empire out of date. The House of Hapsburg
was put in possession of vast estates at a time in
which the idea of nationality conveyed no meaning.
It was said of the Princes of the House of Savoy
that " geography did not allow them to be honest
men." It may be said of the Austrian Emperors that
their position rendered any other form of govern-
ment than absolutism impossible in their States.
Austria was a mere abstraction—a dynasty, a Court,
a bureaucracy, an army. What she has been from
the beginning she will probably continue to the end.
The discordant races under her sceptre can hardly
be kept together upon free and equal constitutional
principles. Austria must seek her basis in one of her
nationalities to the detriment of all the others. It
was on the German hitherto that her strength was
grounded. Should the ruling power depart from her
present centre at Vienna, should the sceptre fall from
the German, where is there another hand in the
Empire able to wield it ? As in the Ottoman Em-
pire, so in the Austrian, nothing seems easier than to
drive out the ruling race ; but nothing is more diffi-
cult than either to substitute another race in its
stead, or to keep together the various races on terms
of freedom and equality. There is no course for the
Emperor to follow that is not open to objection, to
serious, almost insurmountable objection. It is easy to
find fault with everything he may do ; almost impos-
sible to advise the thing he should do. The Magyar
and the Czech will henceforth be scarcely amenable to
any other rule than that of absolute force, and-it is not
clear whence sufficient force for their subjugation
is to come. Schemes of confederacies, of personal
unions, may look very plausible in theory, but
practically they will baffle the efforts of thew isest
ruler. Should even the means be found to recon-
cile the aspirations of the Czech and the Magyar
with the interests of the Monarchy, the virtual in-
dependence of the main nationalities with the
authority of the central Government, violence
would still probably have to be exercised upon the
sub-nationalities, among whom dissatisfaction is
equally rife. We have seen how any measure in-
tended to win popularity with the Poles of Galicia
has turned out obnoxious to the Ruthenians living
side by side with the Poles on the same territory.
In the same manner the Magyar in Hungary can
hardly be propitiated without giving offence to his
Croatian fellow-subject, and any favour shown to
the Czech iu Bohemia is resented as an outrage by
his German neighbour. The only safety for the
Government has hitherto been sought and found
either in pitting the hostile races one against
another, or in mustering up a sufficient military
force to crush them all. Our age hardly ad-
mits of either policy, and it may, therefore, be
questioned how long it will admit of such a State as
the Austrian Empire. The battle of Sadowa has •
revealed the existence of another " sick man" in
Europe. Sick men, it is true, do not always die at
once ; there are chronic and there are even curable
infirmities ; but all the symptoms exhibited by the
new patient seem to point either to the necessity of
violent remedies or to inevitable dissolution.