SELF=DEFENCE. The Cleansing of the Sport.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 151, 23 May 1903, Page 8

SELF=DEFENCE. The Cleansing of the Sport.

THE ability to use the hands m self-defence is no evidence of a brutal instinct piompting the exponent to pick quarrels, and the fact that expertness in the British sport of boxing has led to disgraceful exhibitions, happily illegal m New Zealand, does not in the least supply argument why everyone .should not be so skilled as to be able to know when not to strike. The New Zealand Boxing Association, instituted under happy auspices in July last, recognising that many former exhibitions of the fistic art were either ' put up jobs" or degraded the sport to a mere gamble, saw the necessity for eliminating the brutal element by controlling a sport that is designed to tea:h manly qualities and self -control. People who have always iegard->(l the ability of a strong man to punch lightly when he might have punched haid, as brutal, are not easily weaned to the idea that boxing, properly conducted, is the finest means known to train all the physical faculties, increase the humanness of its exponents, and kill the low element. The men who foim the vaiious committees in the various centres, chosen by the Association, aid not prize-fighters. Many of them have never had a boxing-glove on .n their life, and perhaps never will. They form a body whose control is i guarantee to the public that exhibitions will be conducted with the strictest regard to decency, and the honour o f the most useful sport * » To box well a man must be healthy, sound in wind and limb, with a good heart, and a sharp eye. He must ha* c self-control, peifecb government of Ins temper, and a pliability of muscle that helps, ham in his daily life, be he navvy clerk, or Cabinet Minister. By the way, talking about Cabinet Ministers, Siv J G Ward is patron of the Wellington branch of the 1 Association. Very warm recognition of the work don?, and intended to be' done, by this Association has been given throughout New Zealand, and the management by the Association of the amateur championship meeting at Christchurch was above all praise. * * * There is no sport extant that compares with boxing in keeping a man fit mentally, morally, and physically, and no training for field sports so good as the use of the gloves under proper con-

ditions. The confidence gained ,py your ability to defend yurself iiiti an emergency is a useful asset in a sttrfermous business life. If you are a good, boxer you are strong, as you are strong you will be merciful, for you have learnpd to use the self-conbrol that may have been absent before you put the gloves on. There is a perfect craze for physical culture in the colonies to-day, and therefore the time is ripe to leib the great fistic sport have some of that cultured material to work on.

The position already given to boxing by the fact, that it is controlled by a body of our best and brightest men., .s a guarantee to doubting parents that their boys may box in public without being socially damned. The sport i& already being recognised as oil a level with our other great sports, and, with the fillip given by the New Zealand Boxing Association, it should gain strength, and enable us to produce men not inferior in the art to those of other parts of the Empire.