CLERGYMAN ON THE BURNSJOHNSON FIGHT.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9341, 9 January 1909, Page 5

CLERGYMAN ON THE BURNSJOHNSON FIGHT.

In the course of a sermon at the Forest street Methodist Church, Bendigo, the day after the BnrnsJohnson fight, the Rev. H, Worrall said: “On Saturday for hours that ghastly stadium at Rushontters’ Bay —a place which nestles amidst most picturesque scenery—was made the scene of a carnival of savagery. Two human brutes fought with all the malice and vindictiveness of Bengal tigers. A crowd of 30,000 strong witnessed it, and there was spent; sufficient money to found and maintain a national university, money enough to send forth four hundred cultured and inspired missionaries and to maintain them a year in the empires of paganism. Yet all this money has been prostituted in a country which stood so much in need of capital to develop its latent resources. After all the boasting, bragging and betting, those 20,000 raving white Australians beheld their white champion beaten by the despised black man. Racial hatred has been set on fire. There would be racial reprisals and recriminations. They have by this deed put back the clock of of history. There was not one redeeming feature in the, savagery the brutality. God grant that the defeat of Saturday may not be the sullen and solemn prophecy that Australia is to be outclassed and finally vanquished by these dark-skinned people, who everywhere are beginning to realise their immense possibilities.” Mr Worrall appealed for the prevention of snob scenes in Australia.