The Chronicle.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 15 August 1910, Page 2

The Chronicle.

PUBLISHED DAILY

MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1910. IS HONING UHUTATi? UrccKNT cablegrams brought no'.vs oi the S.i.ith Australian Parliament's .Iceisioii not to bar the exhibition in that Stale of the moving films de-pii-tng the Johnson-Jeffries glove light. Yt'e confess to a feeling of sitwa: lion at the ref.isal of the .'', it'Mi Australian Parliament to be i iisie.l by unreasoning clamour. In !ia:-..v ~/ t'..c United States of America a good case could be shown for Lie i:i.iking illegal of any public ovhiiiition of these pictures. There l'io racial prejudice of White ;'-j;ai:ist JJlack, and of Black against Vv'hite is so intense, and its manifestations are so bitter, that these pict ires would bo likely to cause very !-.?:i<:us and sporadic disturbances. 1. , New Zealand, happily, no such .deling prevails, the very few i"cg.roe.s amongst us being regarded i! r < quite estimable citizens; added 1:; which there i.s a sportsmanlike

I appreciation amongst the White I j.oople for tho sterling performance of the negro Johnson in defeating a doughty opponent who was cheered mi by four-fifths of the witnesses o c the notorious contest. In common with the great majority of White people, the present writer shares the expressed regret that the White champion was defeated. On Hie other hand, it should be borne in mind that the whole affair was sordid, and that neither of the contestants was primarily concerned, for the honour of being tihe champion representative of his race: the chief end in view of principals and supporters alike was the amassing of dollars, and the preliminary assertions and protestations were just so much cheap advertising at the expense of the newspapers that printed, them. Now that the dollars have been won and lost, and the '•' return matches " at street corners have resulted in quite a number of whites and negroes being injured far more severely .than the subsidised prize ring antagonists were, opportunities are being given for people in these far-off isles to witness counterfeit presentments of the scientific display. Let everyone see them wiho wishes to; there will be no harm done to anyone by the sight.

A kincmatograph ' representation ol a glove contest is one of the least exhilarating of tihe many spectacles that the wonderful moving picture machines include in their repertoires. In the actual -prize- ring,

with the clash of gloves on ribs and counter blows on face or chest; witlv tho oxoitod adjurations of personal friends and friendly strangers to the combatants; with the clnng of t)ho gong and the swisli, of towels or sponges as the excited seconds try to freshen up their principals in between the rounds, and to wipe from their faces tho traces of occasional blood-letting; with all these signs and doings there is a concatenation of events sufficient to make an interesting and exciting spectacle for mon in whose veins the red corpuscles predominate over tho white. Hut in the pictures tihcre is next to nothing of this; the blood is colourless and almost invisible, the shouting of tho crowd is inaudible, and the blows of tilie combatants are more shadows of the actual thing. ft is, in fact, quite an innocuous sort of entertainment. "We attended one in Wellington, four or five years ago, in company with an entirely inoffensive man who wont there :i.s a part of his duty, and under protest. Wihoii the knockout blow arrived be enquired of us "if that was all;" and he finally intimated that ho had "enjoyed tho show." Some people say there can be nothing elevating about a glove fi'.',!it. Tn a sense they may bo right; but there are othor planes from wi'.idi these matters should ho viewed. The more quarrelsome typo of man fills his useful ni he in tho world; if there were no fighting men in our nation our philosophers iniyht find themselves knocked on the head by a Russian invader just as they were oo» the point of perfecting their treatises on the attainment of perfection! And when iilio quarrelsome man is not needed for real aggression lie must be humored to some extent. The day may yet come when man's fighting instincts will bo conquered altogether ; but that time is yet afar.

Certain types of men being what they are, it is well to tutor them to expend their energies as harmlessly as may ho. Antonio del Assafoetida, who plunges his dagger in the short ribs of the fellow countryman who annoys him, has his possible counterpart in " SHnky Bill," the Sydney "stoncher" whose fists are ever prone to attack his antagonists. Neither type of man is admirable ; but whereas the one is a danger to life the other is only a minor disability to it. And there are other grades of boxing, too. Some of the most likeable, admirable and true-hearted fellows possible have a love for scientific Tioxing. Men who would not willingly crush a fly take an inordinate delight in making impact on the 'ribs of an antagonist, and they would rather see their names at iihe top of the boxing diampionship classes than at the bottom of a prize sonnet. It is all a matter of taste, as The Chronicle remarked in a previous essay. For ourselves, we ihave known one or two (wouid we exaggerate if we said a score?) estimable fellows whose futures were blighted by a too-keen devotion to the muses. But would anyone amongst the boxers have thetemerity to interview the New Zealand Attorney-General and ask iliam to put a ban upon Robert Browning or John Milton or W. Shakespeare or 11. Bodley, or several other exponents of sonnet writing? We have need, in these times, for a gteater mutual toleration. If some types of men approach brutality in their boxing, they .stand in the same relation to the admirable among boxere as the obvious poetic failures d i to John Milton.