to pugilism.

Something is known of Thurtell apart from Borrow. He was the son of a
man who was afterwards Mayor of Norwich. He had been a soldier and he
was now in business. He arranged prize fights and boxed himself. He
afterwards murdered a man who had dishonestly relieved him of 400 pounds
at gambling, and he was executed for the offence at Hertford in 1824. The
trial was celebrated. It was there that a "respectable" man was defined
by a witness as one who "kept a gig." The trial was included in the
"Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence" which
Borrow compiled in 1825; and Borrow may have written this description of
the accused:

"Thurtell was dressed in a plum-coloured frock coat, with a drab
waistcoat and gilt buttons, and white corded breeches. His neck had a
black stock on, which fitted as usual stiffly up to the bottom of the
cheek and end of the chin, and which therefore pushed forward the flesh
on this part of the face so as to give an additionally sullen weight to
the countenance. The lower part of the face was unusually large,
muscular and heavy, and appeared to hang like a load to the head, and to
make it drop like the mastiff's jowl. The upper lip was long and large,
and the mouth had a severe and dogged appearance. His nose was rather
small for such a face, but it was not badly shaped; his eyes, too, were
small and buried deep under his protruding forehead, so indeed as to defy
detection of their colour. The forehead was extremely strong, bony and
knotted--and the eyebrows were forcibly marked though irregular--that
over the right eye being nearly straight and that on the left turning up
to a point so as to give a very painful expression to the whole face. His
hair was of a good lightish brown, and not worn after any fashion. His
frame was exceedingly well knit and athletic."

An eye witness reports that seven hours before his execution, Thurtell
said: "It is perhaps wrong in my situation, but I own I should like to
read Pierce Egan's account of the great fight yesterday" (meaning that
between Spring and Langan). He slept well through his last night, and
said: "I have dreamt many odd things, but I never dreamt anything about
_this business_ since I have been in Hertford." Pierce Egan described
the trial and execution, and how Thurtell bowed in a friendly and
dignified manner to someone--"we believe, Mr. Pierce Egan"--in the crowd
about the gallows. Pierce Eg