A BISHOP’S CHALLENGE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3427, 5 March 1920, Page 7

A BISHOP ’S CHALLENGE.

EPISCOPAL BOXING BOUT. An episcopal sweepstakes, weight 01agc no bar, the only qualification being that the participants must be bishops, was the novel proposition which set l.mlv]':ll aflutter a few weeks agv. ’lZhc alm:nmcolnont which causre:l mYNIJSO perturbation among the rt;-id mernbers of tho church, came in t}w F 0111! of :1. challenge from Bishop .\.r«.--Laglen, of Clorcmont, South ;\fl~ic;:, *0 E‘. London sporting journal, to box‘ any lsshop five rounds for a fund for dyaahled soldiers.

The pugnacious members of HlO episcopacy, evidently fearing he m'l_v not gc'r sufficient nlatc.l-i-.11 among his ecclesiastical brethren, went even fur-

ther, and declared that in order to aid in bringing about a. match he is \ViUing to extend the offer to any editor of any paper of his" own age. The Bishop, who is 68 years old, is the father of Captain Victor MCLaglen, recently bealten. by Beckett for the Lonsdale heavyweight ehampion~ ship belt. He apparently was teased from his religious devotions to the more inaterial aifairs by something which the papers had printed -iahout his son and his profession.

“Why,” he asks, “is it astonishing that a man who chooses to fight in ‘the ring for money should be the son of a bishop, or a man -of considerable educational attainments‘.? I have had eight sons, all of whom served in the war, and I should be ashamed of any man who could not use his hands. Neither would I wish to see them willing tolundergo the long period of work and training necessary for a contest without payment. I wish -my sons to be what ‘they are—gentlemen; but I do not wish, to see them what they are not—~fools. ‘

“Neither,” adds the Bishop, “i 3 there anything.-; confrai'y to Chl'isl'iall- - in boxing‘. This is solely the nonsense of clergy who have forgotten that ‘they are men living in :1 world Of men and not of Victorian old ladies.”