by Frank Harris
I resolved to sleep and settled down in my corner. Just as the train started a man jumped in. "Is this the Richmond train?" he asked. "I was told it was; but I am uncertain."
"Ask the porter," I barked, "and leave me alone."
"Good God!" he cried, and at the next station left the train, evidently thinking he was in the carriage with a madman. This amusement gave me sleep, I think, for I woke up three stations beyond mine; at Richmond I got out and found a cab and told the driver to drive me back to Putney and ring the bell and deposit me at my door, and I would pay him double. I curled up in the corner of the cab and fell asleep again, and when I reached my home I was in my right senses with my memory back again; but the fear has always been with me since. Sleep is the best nerve sedative.
For some time nothing seemed to do me any good, but soon an unexpected change came in my fortunes, which had the most salutary influence on my health. I shall tell all about it in another chapter.
It was just when I lost the Fortnightly, in the middle of 1895, that the tragedy of Oscar Wilde came to a head.
I have already told the story in my Life of Wilde as carefully as I could and in full possession of the facts and notes taken at the tune. Bernard Shaw has said that at a lunch with Oscar, at which he was present at the Cafe Royal, I told Oscar the results of his trials beforehand with such astonishing accuracy that Shaw marveled at it later. I really think my years of journalism and the Dilke trial and my personal acquaintance with judges and politicians had taught me to know England and the dominant English opinion very intimately.
Oscar, though bred and brought up in it, had no understanding of it at all. He always felt sure he would get off with a minimum sentence. I knew he would get the maximum penalty, and insult and contumely to boot, from the judge and the press. The whole of the English judicial system is loathsome to me in its barbarous harshness; but what I never understood until this trial was that the ordinary English gentleman would behave just as vilely as the judge. For some time before his trial, even Englishmen of a good class who had known him cut Wilde in public, and even before he was condemned, George Alexander erased his name from the advertisements of his play, while still profiting by keeping the play on the stage. The hatred shown to Oscar Wilde taught me for the first time what Shakespeare meant when he spoke of this "all-hating world." Ladies and gentlemen are ashamed of showing reverence and affection in public, but none of them are ashamed of showing disdain, contempt, and hatred- the little human animal is always proud of exhibiting his worst side out of vanity.
I had no power on the Fortnightly Review when Oscar was condemned, and his trial took place just before I got the Saturday Review, so I had no organ at my command. I tried to write something suggesting a moderate sentence, but I couldn't get the article taken anywhere. Here was a brilliant man, one of the best talkers in the world, who had given hundreds of people hours of delightful amusement, and yet everyone seemed glad to show contempt for him; and the judge who went out of his way to insult him was applauded on all hands.
I found out from Ruggles-Brise, the head of the Prison Commission, that if I could get half a dozen literary men of position to pray the Home Secretary to make Oscar's imprisonment a little easier for him by allowing him to read and to have a light in his cell at night, the petition would be granted. I made the petition as colorless as possible and asked Meredith to sign it, but he would not. I could never understand why. Shaw, too, begged to be excused; but Meredith's refusal really shocked me because I had come to believe him one of the Immortals. But in truth everyone was down on Oscar in the most astonishing way.
A couple of incidents that occurred after he came out of prison, after he had purged his guilt by terrible sufferings, will illustrate just what I mean.
I was dining with Oscar Wilde as my guest at the Cafe Durand one night in Paris, when a certain English lord whom I knew came over to me with a smiling face; as soon as he saw my companion he stopped and exclaimed,
"Good God!" and turned abruptly to the door and went out. I happened to be going up in the lift at the Ritz Hotel a day or two later when he came into the lift at the second floor; at once he greeted me saying: "I am so sorry for the other day, Harris, but when I saw whom you were with, I couldn't possibly speak to you: fancy going about with that man in public."
"I know," I said, "there are not many Immortals; I don't wonder you don't want to know them; but why not forget me, too; it would be better, don't you think?" and I turned away and began talking to the lift-man.
Worse still happened to us in Nice. I had taken Oscar to the old Cafe de La Regence and we were dining there when an Englishman came in with a lady.
He stopped near the table and stared at Oscar, then took a seat at the next table behind us, saying in a loud voice to his companion:
"Do you know who that is, that infamous Oscar Wilde; fancy his showing himself in public."
Oscar's face blanched; I had already seen that a heavy glass pitcher of water was within the reach of my hand. If the man had said one word more, I would have smashed his face with the pitcher. I turned to him and said: "Your rudeness can be heard; any more of it and you'll be sorry. Now you had better go to another room." Fortunately, at that moment the manager came in, and I appealed to him; he knew me well and told the man he would not be served and asked him to leave the place. The pair had to go. Oscar was trembling from head to foot.
"Good God, Frank," he cried, "how dreadful; why do they hate me so; what harm have I ever done them?"
"Think of a London fog," I replied; "it prevents them seeing clearly; don't bother about them: didn't Shakespeare call it this 'all-hating world'?"
Many years later I was to find out what the "all-hating world" could do to show its dislike of me!
CHAPTER XIII
Prize-fighting
In my second volume I published a long account of the gluttony at the Lord Mayors' banquets in London, and especially of the bestial conduct of the most celebrated mayor that the city of London ever had-Sir Robert Fowler.
In the last chapter of this volume I shall tell how the English objected to this and tried to get my books stopped in France through the police.
I have no wish to denigrate the English. When I returned to London in '80-'81, they were kinder to me than the Americans were when I went to New York with an established reputation in 1914. Many individual Englishmen, in the thirty-odd years I spent in London, became dear friends of mine: and one in especial-Ernest Beckett, Lord Grimthorpe-I shall have much to tell about later. He was the best friend, except Professor Smith of Lawrence, that I have met on this earthly pilgrimage, but some Englishmen and English women, too, are friends of mine to this hour. Still, I am resolved, as one of God's spies, to tell the exact truth about them as I see it.
I don't know how I became a member of the National Sporting Club, but I was always greatly interested in athletics. I may here say a word about perfect physical condition to convince the athlete that I know what I am talking about. From thirty to forty in London I had a professional to box with me for half an hour every morning. When I was perfectly fit, my hand used to strike before I consciously saw the opening: as soon as I saw the opening before I struck I knew I was out of condition. The unconscious action should be quicker than the conscious.
In the late eighties and early nineties, I went to the Sporting Club a couple of times a week. Just as I found that my idea of a good dinner was not shared by those who partook of the Lord Mayors' banquets, so I found that my idea of fair play was not that of the majority of the Sporting Club in London.
I remember well one evening in which two lightweights, boys apparently of twenty or twenty-three, were boxing. In the third or fourth round, one of them caught a heavy blow on the chin and staggered about the ring, grasping at the ropes, and missing them, fell down. The referee began the solemn:
"One-two-three-," but before the fatal ten had been announced, the boy had staggered to his feet, only immediately to be knocked down aga
in. I happened to be sitting just below the judge. I got up in my excitement and said, "Oh, please, won't you stop the fight! He has no chance: he may be severely injured by the next blow; please stop it!"
"I have no right to," replied the judge; and a moment later the cry went up,
"Knock him out, knock him out!" The victor struck the boy a heavy blow and laid him out on the floor for much more than the count of ten. I couldn't help crying out, "Disgraceful, shameless cruelty." A certain lord near me jumped up and cried, "I don't know you, Sir, and don't want to, but keep your opinions to yourself. We want to see a fight to a finish here and not to be interrupted in the middle by your childish opinions."
I could not help laughing: his indignation was so intense and so sincere. "Vae victis," I said; "'woe to the beaten, woe to the unsuccessful' should be the motto of Englishmen."
"And a damned good motto, too," exclaimed another man.
Evidently I was at variance with the feeling of the whole club. I spoke to the secretary and got him to take me outside and introduce me to the beaten boy.
He was pretty badly hurt but full of courage.
"How did you come to get in the way of that blow on the chin?" I asked.
"I haven't had any work for some time," he said to me, "and I have to keep a mother and sister. I hadn't much to eat this last week so I looked upon this fight as a blessing: it would give me ten shillings even if I were beaten; and if I won I might get ten pounds out of it. If you haven't eaten anything for a couple of days," he went on, "you get light and swimmy-like in the head, and so I got it on the chin-a rare jolt; after that I didn't know much what happened till they helped me out here and gave me a whisky and soda. But now I am going off with ten bob and one of them will get me a beefsteak and then I shall feel better."
I was charmed by the boy's high-spirited pluck, so I said, "Take a ten pound note, too, and make up your mind that you will win the next fight by keeping your chin tucked into your chest: it isn't well to shove it out too much in the open."
"Thank you, Sir," he said laughing, "I'll do my best."
I give this incident simply to expose the dreadful cruelty of the average wellbred Englishman. There is a curious want of chivalry in them, and no compassion for the under-dog. I remember two remarkable incidents exemplifying this that may find a place here.
I was one of those who went down the Seine to see a battle on an island in the river between Sullivan and Charlie Mitchell. While they were putting up the ropes, both the combatants stripped off, and it seemed to me a thousand to one on Sullivan. He must have been five feet eleven in height and was superbly made: the very model of a prize-fighter, though he had become far too fat and had put on a veritable paunch; still the power of him took the breath. For years he had toured America, offering any one five hundred dollars who would stay in the ring with him four rounds; but now he was grown fat and scant of breath, like Hamlet.
Charlie Mitchell, whom I knew very well, was an excellent prize-fighter in what we would call today the light heavyweight division. He was about five feet six. in height and very well made; was trained to the hour; and weighed one hundred and sixty pounds or one hundred and sixty-five against the two hundred that Sullivan weighed.
There had been a great deal of rain, and when the men had been in the ring for ten minutes, it was like a mud-puddle and as slippery as a butter-slide.
All through the first rounds, Charlie Mitchell, assured of his superior condition, kept away, forcing Sullivan to run after him again and again round the ring. About the fourth round, Sullivan stopped; he was puffing and blowing like a grampus. "Say, Charlie," he bellowed in his deep voice, "is this a prize-fight or a foot-race?"
Everyone burst out laughing. Sullivan had spoken needlessly. In the next round before he got his wind, Charlie met him and had a set-to in the middle of the ring: he ended it by slipping Sullivan's right and hitting him viciously in the stomach with the left, and then, crossing to the chin with his right, knocked the big champion down. "It seems to me it is a prizefight," said Mitchell coolly; but the heavy blow had taught Sullivan his lesson, and he fought more cautiously for the next half hour or so, till the referee said the fight was over as a draw.
It was curious to note how at once the English spectators changed their attitude and began to pay court to Mitchell.
On the way back to Paris everyone except myself seemed disgusted: the fight should have been fought to a finish, they said. What rot it was to spoil the day with a draw. We had seen some brilliant boxing, and I didn't think the day spoilt at all. It had taught me that Sullivan's day was over.
A little later when the news came through that he had been beaten by Jim Corbett at New Orleans in September, '92, I was not surprised. From all accounts, it was almost a replica of the fight which I had seen with Charlie Mitchell. The first rounds Corbett kept well out of reach, and the crowd jeered at him, while Sullivan kept calling out in his deep bass voice: "Come in and fight." About the third round Corbett went in to fight, and by the end of the fourth round it was seen that the great John Sullivan was beaten. How he ever lasted twenty-five rounds was a wonder! At the beginning of the twenty-first round, Sullivan made a last attempt to turn the tide and rushed at Corbett, but Corbett was too fast and managed to dodge nearly all his blows. This exertion of Sullivan was the last spurt: from that time on, Corbett kept hitting him as he pleased, and finally sent in a terrific right to the chin and Sullivan fell for the full count. On getting to his feet again, he staggered to the ropes, and said, "It is the old story: I am like the pitcher that went to the well once too often," and with the tears running down his face he added, "I have been beaten by a younger and better man, but I thank God he is an American."
John L. Sullivan was a remarkable character, for when he went home beaten and broken and met the treatment usually accorded in this world to the defeated, he gave up drinking and became a temperance lecturer. He made good, too, in this new role, and died fairly well off. In my poor opinion, with the solitary exception of Fitzsimmons, he was the best prizefighter I have ever seen, and surely at his best, the best prize-fighter in the history of the ring.
Some time later I went to see Slavin fight Jim Smith at Bruges. At first I was in Smith's camp and welcomed his supporters in the hotel at Bruges. Squire Baird, as he was called, was the principal backer of Smith. He was a millionaire, the result of three generations of Scotch ironmasters. I thought him one of the worst specimens of mankind I had ever seen: foul-mouthed, illiterate; he bragged continuously, but the whole gang did him honor for his wealth.
Next day after some difficulties the ring was pitched and the fight began. The two men seemed fairly well matched: Slavin, a little taller and lighter, but trained to the hour; Smith, strongly made and a good boxer, but clearly suffering from years of good London living. In the first round or two, Slavin took all care, though not afraid to mix it; but after the third round, the fight went all one way; it ended by Slavin knocking Smith down, which surprised the whole crowd of Smith's backers, and most of all, Baird, who kept shouting insults at Slavin from Smith's corner.
Soon afterwards, the crowd of Smith's supporters, drawing the ropes loose, made the way to Smith's corner a sort of lane. Smith stood by his own chair awaiting Slavin's onslaught, and Slavin with rare courage went over to him.
As he entered the lane, blows were showered upon him from Smith's supporters, but he nevertheless went through to Smith and knocked him down in his own corner.
The fight was over and ought to have been given to Slavin then and there, but Baird and his gang were not finished with. They raised a cry of "Police" and dragged Smith out of the ring and began sponging him and attending to him, thus giving him time to recover, if recovery were possible. Slavin sat in his corner quietly waiting. When Smith came in again to the ring, Slavin again had to go over to his corner to fight him, and now one of Baird's gang used a knuckle duster, and as Slavin passed, struck him heavily on the ear, cutting him so that the blood poured dow
n his neck and shoulders; but he went on to Smith's corner in spite of a hail of blows from the spectators, and again knocked Smith down. At this the referee, to the surprise of every one, gave the fight as a draw.
Turning to the referee, Slavin exclaimed: "I have come thirteen thousand miles to have a fair fight, and you give it as a draw when the man for three rounds hasn't dared to leave his corner. Look how his supporters hit me and treated me; why in the very first round he wrestled me and shoved his boot nails into my legs"-and he pulled up his short drawers and showed his bleeding thigh. "I didn't even protest," he went on, "I could beat the fellow with one hand. How dare you give it as a draw? There is only one man in the ring!"
The referee replied, "I did it to save you from the brutes on the other side."
"Nonsense," cried Slavin, "turn them all in; I'll take on the whole damned crew." Never was there more splendid Irish courage.
At a word from Baird, his crew ran round to Slavin's corner as if to attack him, but Slavin walked to his chair, paying no more attention to them than if they had been a pack of Sunday school children, and not one dared now to lay a hand on him.
Baird's money had queered the whole fight!
But even before Slavin had spoken, I had left Smith's side and gone across to Slavin's corner, and when Baird came to me afterwards, I took no notice of him and wouldn't speak to him.
I returned to the Sporting Club and told the story and insisted that Squire Baird should be turned out of the club as a disgrace, not only to English sport, but to humanity. And I believe he was turned out. A word of mine about him stuck, I believe: remembering he was a product of Scotch ironmasters and Puritans, I said that the iron had entered into his soul.
A little later a story went about London of his conduct to his mistress, a woman of good breeding, which did him no good. He had bought her, it appeared, and one night he came home with his usual set of drunken prizefighters and cab-drivers; and when they were all drunk, he rang the bell and sent the maid up for Mrs. L… The maid came down and said her mistress was in bed. Baird said, "If she doesn't come down, I will go up and fetch her down in her shift." Whereupon the lady had to come down and witness some of the drunken orgy. Next morning she packed up and told Baird she was going to leave him. He went out and in half an hour came back and tried in his rough way to get her to stay. When she wouldn't stay, he took a ball of paper out of his pocket and threw it at her face. She told him what a cur he was to strike a woman; he cried, "Look at it, you fool, before you talk." When she picked it up, she found the ball of paper was made of fifty notes for a thousand pounds each.