Abstract
Stanwix Hall was crowded by nine o'clock on Saturday, February 24, 1855. The new Bowery saloon rang with the sounds of patrons singing, glasses clinking, and laborers laughing on that winter night, the end of the workweek. In the back room, bareknuckle boxing champion John Morrissey sat with friends, sharing toasts and songs. Their conviviality ended suddenly, however, when Morrissey, a gambling parlor owner and political gang leader as well as a prizefighter, realized that William Poole had entered the main barroom. The inebriated champion approached Poole, a powerfully built butcher and saloonkeeper. Salutations quickly gave way to insults, Morrissey calling Poole a cowardly son of a bitch, Poole retorting that Morrissey was a damned liar. The tension kept building, until the butcher pulled a gun and bellowed, You tasted of my mutton before; how do you like it? a reference to an earlier battle in which Poole, aided by several dozen friends, soundly thrashed the champion.,
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