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| Brummy and Physic battle it out. Low Life Deeps. |
In a detailed and lurid article published on 6 July 1874 in the Daily Telegraph, investigative journalist James Greenwood claimed that several days earlier on 24 June, during a brief stopover in the Potteries, where he hoped to find evidence of illegal organised dog fighting, he and a large crowd of onlookers had instead witnessed a brutal fight in a cellar in Shelton between a grizzled, muscular dwarf named Brummy and a ferocious bulldog named Physic, a battle that the man had barely won. The national scandal that resulted from this shocking article seriously embarrassed the area for a time and questions were even asked in Parliament.
However, all was not quite as it seemed and once the initial furore had died down the tables were quickly turned on Mr Greenwood, as subsequent investigations by the police, the local authority, other newspapers and the RSPCA, not only highlighted the numerous glaring discrepancies in Greenwood's tale, but more tellingly found no absolutely evidence whatsoever that such a fight had taken place. Rather than sticking rigidly to the story he had spun, Greenwood then started to back-peddle, changing or mitigating parts of the tale to excuse himself and explain why there was no proof to be found, all of which excited a great deal of derision from other papers. The upshot of it all was that within a few weeks it was widely concluded that Greenwood had simply made the story up, or adapted a dubious scrap of Staffordshire folklore that he may have heard during his stay in the area. Following the RSPCA’s investigation and the report they sent in to the government, the Home Secretary of the time came to the same conclusion and on 20 July wrote a reply to the Hanley Watch Committee, which stated that he was satisfied that the story of the fight was false.
Greenwood had thus been called a liar at the highest level and Hanley’s good name was restored, but mud sticks, and the tale rankled with the people of the Potteries for a good while after. In 1907, Arnold Bennett summed up the lingering ill-will towards the reporter and his tall tale in his famous short story ‘The Death of Simon Fuge’.
‘The only man who stands a chance of getting his teeth knocked down his throat here is the ingenious person who started the celebrated legend of the man-and-dog fight at Hanbridge. It's a long time ago, a very long time ago; but his grey hairs wont save him from horrible tortures if we catch him. We don't mind being called immoral, we're above a bit flattered when London newspapers come out with shocking details of debauchery in the Five Towns, but we pride ourselves on our manners.’
Reference: James Greenwood, Low Life Deeps; Staffordshire Sentinel, July 1874; numerous national newspapers and magazines July 1874.