Where, we wonder, would the slab-sided “Sprawleybridge Babe” or the shambling “Baldnob the Titan” have been in front of the small but active and accomplished “Duodecimo Dumps”?  Why, where the vaunted “Benicia Boy” would have been after fifty rounds with TOM SAYERS—­with his “Auctioneer” in full play.  In fact, when a good little ’un meets a bad big ’un, it is very soon a case—­with the latter—­of “bellows to mend,” or “there he goes; with his eye out!”

These remarks have been suggested by recent revelations concerning that much over-rated pet of the mugs—­the “Woolwich Whopper,” alias the “Elswick Folly,” alias HAMILTON’s “Novice.”

The “W.W.” always was a fraud, and, for all his lumbering bulk and “MOLINEAUX-like” capacity of “tatur-trap,” never could train-on soundly, or—­figuratively speaking—­“spank a hole in a pound of butter.”  Many cleverish trainers, and still more ambitious backers of the “Corinthian Jay” species, have had a shy, professionally or monetarily, at the “Woolwich Whopper,” and invariably with disastrous results.  The “W.W.,” though big enough in all conscience, is not of sound constitution, nor of the true wear-and-tear sort, is very difficult (and expensive) to train, and when brought fairly up to the scratch is certain to go bang to pieces after the first few rounds, if these are at all of a hot-and-hot character.

Still there are—­worse luck!—­certain parties connected, more or less, with the P.R. who—­whether from interest, vanity, or sheer cussedness, still pin their faith to this “huge, lumbering, soft, long-shanked, top-heavy, shambling, thump-shirking Son of a Gun,” as NOBBY NUPKINS, of the Nautical Division, pithily called him the other day.  If some of these credulous or conceited coves had witnessed the little trial “scrap” which took place recently (on the strict Q.T.), at the “Admiral’s Head,” in the presence of Mr. JOHN B-LL (the famous P.R. referee), between the vaunted “Whopper” and a smart and handy light-weight known as “Quickfire,” their owl-eyes might, having been a little opened, and their peacock-strut a bit modified.

The “Woolwich Whopper,” for all his height and overwhelming weight, seemed to toe the scratch with awkward reluctance.  He put up his dukes very fumblingly, and his attitude was decidedly of the “head-over-tip” character.  Young “Quickfire,” on the contrary, was erect as a dart, nimble on his pins as a girl at her first dance, and smart in delivery as a newly-promoted Postman, or the Parcels Express.  He was all over his man in a brace of shakes, and the “Whopper,” who looked as though he could have knocked holes in him if he could have hit him, could hardly land a “little one in” once in the course of a round, and then it was so short that it would hardly have brushed a bumble-bee off a buttercup.

The respected Referee, who watched the dust-up with careful interest, was much pleased with the promise of the smart light-weight, “Quickfire,” who seems to have in him the makings of a fine fighter.  Mr. B-LL did not disguise his disgust at the feeble figure cut by the “Whopper,” about whose pretensions to first-class form, let alone Champion honours, it is to be hoped we shall hear little more for the future.