Cashel Byron's Profession

In the following month Cashel Byron, William Paradise, and Robert

Mellish appeared in the dock together, the first two for having been

principals in a prize-fight, and Mellish for having acted as bottle-

holder to Paradise. These offences were verbosely described in a

long indictment which had originally included the fourth man who had

been captured, but against whom the grand jury had refused to find a

true bill. The prisoners pleaded not guilty.

The defence was that the fight, the occurrence of which was

admitted, was not a prize-fight, but the outcome of an enmity which

had subsisted between the two men since one of them, at a public

exhibition at Islington, had attacked and bitten the other. In

support of this, it was shown that Byron had occupied a house at

Wiltstoken, and had lived there with Mellish, who had invited

Paradise to spend a holiday with him in the country. This accounted

for the presence of the three men at Wiltstoken on the day in

question. Words had arisen between Byron and Paradise on the subject

of the Islington affair; and they had at last agreed to settle the

dispute in the old English fashion. They had adjourned to a field,

and fought fairly and determinedly until interrupted by the police,

who were misled by appearances into the belief that the affair was a

prize-fight.

Prize-fighting was a brutal pastime, Cashel Byron's counsel said;

but a fair, stand-up fight between two unarmed men, though doubtless

technically a breach of the peace, had never been severely dealt

with by a British jury or a British judge; and the case would be

amply met by binding over the prisoners, who were now on the best of

terms with one another, to keep the peace for a reasonable period.

The sole evidence against this view of the case, he argued, was

police evidence; and the police were naturally reluctant to admit

that they had found a mare's nest. In proof that the fight had been

premeditated, and was a prize-fight, they alleged that it had taken

place within an enclosure formed with ropes and stakes. But where

were those ropes and stakes? They were not forthcoming; and he

(counsel) submitted that the reason was not, as had been suggested,

because they had been spirited away, for that was plainly

impossible; but because they had existed only in the excited

imagination of the posse of constables who had arrested the

prisoners.

Again, it had been urged that the prisoners were in fighting

costume. But cross-examination had elicited that fighting costume

meant practically no costume at all: the men had simply stripped in

order that their movements might be unembarrassed. It had been

proved that Paradise had been--well, in the traditional costume of

Paradise (roars of laughter) until the police borrowed a blanket to

put upon him.