but raised still more, when speaking of the English Gypsies and
especially of their eminence "in those disgraceful and brutalising
exhibitions called pugilistic combats."

"When a boy of fourteen," he says, "I was present at a prize fight; why
should I hide the truth? It took place on a green meadow, beside a
running stream, close by the old church of E---, and within a league of
the ancient town of N---, the capital of one of the eastern counties. The
terrible Thurtell was present, lord of the concourse; for wherever he
moved he was master, and whenever he spoke, even when in chains, every
other voice was silent. He stood on the mead, grim and pale as usual,
with his bruisers around. He it was, indeed, who _got up_ the fight, as
he had previously done with respect to twenty others; it being his
frequent boast that he had first introduced bruising and bloodshed amidst
rural scenes, and transformed a quiet slumbering town into a den of Jews
and metropolitan thieves. Some time before the commencement of the
combat, three men, mounted on wild-looking horses, came dashing down the
road in the direction of the meadow, in the midst of which they presently
showed themselves, their horses clearing the deep ditches with wonderful
alacrity. 'That's Gypsy Will and his gang,' lisped a Hebrew pickpocket;
'we shall have another fight.' The word Gypsy was always sufficient to
excite my curiosity, and I looked attentively at the new comers.

"I have seen Gypsies of various lands, Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish;
and I have also seen the legitimate children of most countries of the
world, but I never saw, upon the whole, three more remarkable
individuals, as far as personal appearance was concerned, than the three
English Gypsies who now presented themselves to my eyes on that spot. Two
of them had dismounted, and were holding their horses by the reins. The
tallest, and, at the first glance, the most interesting of the two, was