HOW RICHARD SEDDON LICKED HIS MAN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2232, 25 July 1891, Page 3

HOW RICHARD SEDDON LICKED HIS MAN.

The following rcchauffage of the I Minister for Public Works is told by' l the Wellington correspondent of the Tuapeka Times :—I heard the other evening from a West Coast member a rather good story of the Hon. Richard's prowess and resource in the old fighting days on the Coast. It was away back in the sixties, and Dick's fame as a slogger was unquestioned in the mining camps. One day a deputation of roughs waited on Dick, with the request that he should fight one of their number. They had come to fight the champion, and he must either fight or be plugged. Richard had a good deal of experience in such matters ; he could see they were a bad lot and need not expect fair play at their hands. He had a look at the strange bruiser, and told him he'd be most happy to give him all he wanted. He then consulted with some of his friends who gathered from the claims near by. The spot chosen for the set-to was a piece of flat ground under a high rock. A ring having been formed and all the other preliminaries gone through, one of Dick's friends, a raw-boned Californian digger, coolly got on the rock and producing a couple of revolvers, one in each hand, demanded attention. If a single man of the gang interfered with the light or struck a blow, lie reckoned and calculated, in the,suggestive langauge of the day,

he'd lay 'em out straight away. The rowdieswerenonplussed and swore a good deal. But the fight' proceeded under cover of the revolvers, and the future Minister went through his man in fine style, knocking him out in the fifth or sixth round.