When Mr Scott was taking the portrait

When Mr Scott was taking the portrait

Poor Weightman! When Mr. Scott was taking the portrait, by photography, which illustrates this volume, the old man was greatly surprised at the process, and asked with much simplicity: "Is it a thing he hes mannish't to pick up by his oan ingenuity, d'ye think?or hes't been put into him by God Almighty?"

In his eightieth year, being reduced to the most abject poverty, alone in the world, and without friends to assist him, an appeal was made through the local papers for assistance, which met with a generous response on the part of the public, and served to "keep hunger frae t' dooar" while his health continued to be anything like good. But at the close of the year 1874in the midst of one of the severest winters on recordWeightman had a stroke, which laid him prostrate; and having no one near to minister to his wants, the parish authorities stept in and insisted upon his being removed to the poor-house at Brampton. This was sore news to the poor man, and went sadly against the grain, but there was no help for it. And in January, 1875, he, whose exploits in the wrestling ring had been cheered to the echo, again and again, by tens of thousands, at last found a pauper's gravehis corpse being followed thither by a couple of infirm old men from the workhouse, and none else.

Such was the end of the powerful and gigantic John Weightman.

Source: Wrestlings and Wrestlers