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Table of Contents

Every dale and valley, every nook and corner, throughout Cumberland, Westmorland, and North Lancashire, at all likely to yield materials, has been ransacked and laid under subservience in the compilation of this volume; and it now becomes the pleasant duty to record the fact, that not a single instance of unwillingness was met with, on the part of the multitude of narrators, who supplied the items of the various events chronicled.

The local newspaper files have materially aided our labours, in a variety of ways. Besides supplying many passing incidents, we have found them, in some instances, exceedingly useful in the way of verifying and correcting dates.

A brief description of Swiss Wrestling was promised, for the introductory chapter, by a native of that country resident in London. This promise yielded no fruit at the time, and it is a matter of regret that it still remains unfulfilled.

Of Wrestling in France, we have not been able to glean much information, although enquiries were set on foot through the columns of Notes and Queries and Bell's Life in London.

For much information contained in the article on Wrestling in Scotland, we are indebted to Mr. Walter Scott of Innerleithen; and for a few other items we have to thank Mr. Robert Murray of Hawick.

While the feats of many well known wrestlers are to be found in these pages, the names of others equally well known are necessarily omitted; but we may be able to publish a record of their achievements at some future time.

With a full consciousness of many imperfections, we now leave our work to the judgment of those impartial readers, who may honour it with a perusal.