Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1868-01-31 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

PERSEVERANCE OF PRIZE-FIGHTERS.—The story of a prize fight, which was last week " on" in the neighbourhood of Lougton, in Staffordehire, has just been made known. The principals were John Ridge, of Fenton, and Jacob Salt alias Daverall, and the "figure" was £5 a side. The it-en and their friends met on Monday tuorning, when the " mill" was appointed to take place, and went towards Barleston, in a field near which place a ring was formed, and the fight commenced. They had been followed by the police, however, and were disturbed in their "little game," when they "moved on," and fought a few rounds in a field at Blurton Ley, but were overtaken by dark, and obliged to suspend operations. The next morning they made another start, and this time went in the direetion of Divitly Lane, where the fight was again interrupted by the police and stopped. The following morning another effort was made, and this time the plans were laid a little more adroitly. The price pals and their friends left Lengton for Stoke by train, and at Stoke booked for Cresswell, in going to which they passed Lengton. Alighting at Cresswell, they went to a field near Sevelley Green, and there begao the fight in earnest. They fought 70 rounde, and had what was called a "splendid mill," in Th:ch both men were terribly punished. Not even here, however, could they pursue their practice of the 'noble art" in peace. The "myrmidons of the law," in the shape 'of the Cheadle and Dilhorne police, were now on their track, and the triumph of science was again frustrated. It was clearly useless to struggle any longer with an adverse fate. Contenting themselves with their mutual punishment and their mutual evidences of pluck, they agreed to make it a drawn battle, and so wended their way homewards. 1111.1nDE1t.—There is nothing which interests mankind so deeply as a murder. It is mere cant in superior people to deplore the predilection of the lower classes for that part of the newspaper which eontains the record of crime. Superior people are quite as eager as their inferiors to turn to the history of darl deeds. It is not surprising. Murder is the most awful of all crimes. The most vulgar deed of this kind derives importance from the sacredness which we all attach to human life. The commonest outcast, whose throat is cut darkly and mysteriously in some low lodging-house, receives from the awful circumstance of the crime something of the halo which surrounds the martyr. Nothing else that could happen to such a person could ever elevate him to the importance which he receives from being murdered. The murder of Mr O'Connor by Mrs Manning is by no means a burlesque of the murder of King Duncan by Lady Macbeth. It is the same thing. The vulgar surroundings of the cellar at Bertnnndsey do not render the deed less awful or less tragic In both cases it is the violent taking of a sacred life. There is something solemn in the very sound of the words "the mardered man." Solemnity falls upon the voice when we say " the dead man," but " murdered " takes a deeper, graver tone. No places are so well remembered as those where murders have been committed. Our travelling guide never fails to point out the murder-spots, and no one ever forgets those spots. They burn themselves into the mind the instant we see them. We forget all else that we have seen during tne day, though we may have gazed on things the like of which we have never get eyes upon before. The murder-spot, though but a mean room, a heap of stones, or the root of a tree, remains as vivid as fire. —Dickens's All the Year Round."