Sullivan’s sparrin’ expeditions, and Mace and Slade’s exhibitions, which have been attracting so much attention lately among the public and the police, are but the latest manifestations of a system which was introduced to this country by a British pugilist and sport, almost forgotten now, but once very famous. I mean “the Deaf ‘Un” as he was called–”Deaf Burke.”
Deaf Burke, so-called from bein’ hard of hearin’, was not a very handsome man to look at, was rather under-sized, ugly and ungraceful; but he was very strong, and a perfect master of “science.” Probably he was the most successful pugilist of his day. He had not fought, perhaps, as many times in the ring as some others, and he had not happened to have so many celebrated men pitted against him as some others, but, with one exception, he had conquered every man he had fought with, one after the other, and, after all, conquering your antagonist is about the best way of fightin’.
Burke, when he came to this country, had already fought with and beaten thirteen men out of fourteen who had entered the ring against him–fought and beaten ‘em square, too. One of the thirteen men had died from the effects of Burke’s blows, but this sad result had happened without any malice or ill-will on Burke’s part. The man killed had been a noted pugilist named Simon Byrne, and people had bet he would lick Burke sure. But somehow Byrne was not in condition, and the lickin’ he got proved too much for him. The English don’t stand any nonsense in the killin’ line, and Burke was at once arrested and tried for murder. A hue and cry was raised against prize fightin’, and everybody thought that Burke would be found guilty, sure. But Englishmen like fair play, and when the case came to be tried, it was proved that Burke had not only had no bad feelings against poor Byrne, but had, on the contrary, not hit him as hard as he might, and had acted like a gentleman throughout.
So the jury were compelled to find Burke not guilty, and instead of bein’ hung, Burke got to be one of the most popular men in England, and his fame extended to this country. But to the day of his death the Deaf ‘Un was always melancholy over the death of Byrne, and he used to say that he stand a “thousand pun to see Sim Byrne standin’ alive afore him.” “A thousand pounds” was Burke’s highest idea of money–like as we say in this country “a million dollars”–but I guess he would have stood his “thousand pun” and more if he could have brought directly to life the man he indirectly killed.
The only man that had ever licked Burke in a P. R. fight was Bill Cousens, and, strange to say, Bill Cousens wasn’t much of a fighter himself, and always spoke in the highest terms of the man he had licked, and always said that Burke was a better pugilist than he was himself, only he had happened to lick him.
Burke was a pretty shrewd fellow, and hearin’ that the Yankees were beginnin’ to have a taste for pugilism and sparrin’, thought he would come over and give ‘em a little of both, beginnin’ with the sparrin’.
So he formed a sort of partnership with Sam O’Rourke, an Irish pugilist, and the two came first Boston, and then to New York, givin’ sparrin’ exhibitions and glove fights together.
Of course the religious people protested, and some of the papers came out against ‘em. But the vast majority of the papers and the public were in their favor, so the opposition didn’t amount to much, and there wasn’t half the circus about Deaf Burke and Sam O’Rourke forty years ago that there has been about Mace and Slade.
They made a good team,O’Rourke and Deaf Burke. O’Rourke was very popular with the Irish, and Deaf Burke with the English and the Americans generally. O’Rourke hadn’t a very fine record as a pugilist, but he made a very good second to Burke, and for some time the two got along splendidly together.
In Boston the pair of pugilists made a tremendous stir. They set the Puritans wild. They made as much of a hullabaloo there as Mrs. Langtry did here.
And in New York, too, they were very successful. Deaf Burke became the talk of the town while he was in it.
One day at Tom Nolan’s drinking saloon, a swell came in who had taken it in his head to pooh-pooh all this sparrin’ excitement just because other people were yieldin’ to it. There are always some fools who go too far one way just because they see some other fools goin’ too far the other way. So, because some men made perhaps too much of Deaf Burke, this swell made too little of him and of sparrin’ generally, and said in the barroom that anybody that had two arms could “spar,” that he himself didn’t know anythin’ about sparrin’, but he would like “to see anybody that could knock him down,” and so on.
A short, thickset, ugly-lookin’ man, who had been listenin’ to all this, stepped up just here and bet the swell a bottle of wine that he could knock him down in three motions, usin’ only his left arm at that. The swell began at this to back down; but at last, for very shame’s sake, he took the bet, really believin’ he could win it, as he had two arms with which to defend himself, while the other man, accordin’ to the terms of the wager, was only to use one arm and only to have the right to use that three times.
But the swells calculation came to nothin’ in about one minute. The short-set, ugly man only made one-two-three motions of his left arm, and lo and behold, Mister Swell was stretched out on the barroom floor sprawlin’.
The swell believed devoutly in sparrin’ from that time on, and when he found that the short-set, ugly man was Deaf Burke himself, he changed right round, and from that time out was one of the Deaf ‘Un’s best friends.
A little while later on O’Connell challenged Deaf Burke to a fight on Hart’s Island, and among the heaviest backers of Burke in this affair was this “swell.” O’Connell was defeated in ten rounds, thus making the fourteenth man whom Burke had licked.
For some months Sam O’Rourke and Deaf Burke traveled and sparred and made money together, then trouble broke out. Sam had gradually got to thinkin’ that Burke was gainin’ too much notoriety over himself. The papers and the public all talked more about Burke than they did about O’Rourke. They seemed to look upon O’Rourke as Burke’s assistant, not his equal. And this didn’t suit O’Rourke, who considered by this time he was just as good a man as Burke, and a good deal better. So Sam O’Rourke, partly for excitement, partly for grudge against Burke, and partly because his Irish friends were eggin’ him on to do it all the time, got up a regular P. R. fight with Deaf Burke. No job, but a regular fight, which took place near New Orleans. People went from Boston and New York to see this fight, and it was as big a thing at the time as the Heenan-Morrissey or Heenan-Sayers fight later.
Deaf Burke trained splendidly for this fight, but Sam O’Rourke didn’t train as well, and his friends didn’t feel so sure of his lickin’ Burke on the day of the fight as they had professed to feel three months before it. Their fears were realized for Deaf Burke began poundin’ Sam O’Rourke in his usual sledgehammer fashion, and would have soon made him the fifteenth man he had licked. But suddenly the friends of O’Rourke pulled out pistols and bowie-knives, and holdin’ ‘em at Deaf Burke’s and his second’s throats, force the Deaf ‘Un to retire from the ring before finishin’ his antagonist. But as this style of thing was after all only a confession that their man had really been licked, O’Rourke’s friends got threatenin’ all sorts of vengeance against Burke, so his friends got him an Arkansas toothpick (as they used to call the bowie-knife) and a swift horse, and he got out of New Orleans by night, or probably he would never have got out of it alive.
This finished Deaf Burke’s career in America, and he left his country not carryin’ away with him a very good opinion of it, but carryin’ away a good deal of money.
And just as soon as Deaf Burke returned to England, Yankee Sullivan came over to this country, and there have been prize fights and sparrin’ exhibitions ever since.
[Editor’s notes: The Burke-O’Rourke sparring tour took place in 1836-37, culminating in the prizefight at New Orleans in May, 1837. Burke’s successful fight against Tom O’Connell occurred a few months afterward, in August 1837.
The James Mace-Herman Slade sparring exhibition came from Australia and New Zealand in 1882 to San Francisco in January 1883. Several municipalities, leery of mob violence that frequently broke out at boxing matches, prohibited even sparring matches. Sparring matches were often fought in earnest but only for three or four rounds; the gate receipts were split by the fighters.]
