THE RING.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 320, 28 November 1888, Page 3

THE RING.

I cull the following; from the columns of the "Sydney Mail,'' one of the most dis passiotiate of colonial journals and on© whose opinion ranks high : —Once more we are compelled, ab the risk of being raaltroated, to draw attention to the absence of all proper regulations for boxing matches. On the 9th instant, an elderly man named Dallas was boxing at Lil.ydale, in Victoria, and in the middle ot the bout he fell down and died ot apoplexy. Usually when anything unexpected happens the police reswb to the old chargo of insulting behaviour. If a man walks down the street with a stuffed whale under his coat, or i& found on the pavement suffering .from sunstroke, or ia caught smuggling, ov is unable to talk English through the mere fact of being a foreigner, or gets bitten bv ft dog, or inn over, he is charged by an intelligent policeman with insulting behaviour. In the case of tho boxer who died at Lily dale, it is evident that some new constable has been allowed priority, a^ the old indictment was departed fiom, and the paity who \va->' boxing with Dallas was charged with unlawful assault. Will any intelligent man outside the "foice" tell us by what, right a boxer following a legitimate recreation, and one which is certainly not more harmful than foils, single-sticks, or cricket, and certainly not so dangerous as football, is for tho time being 1 made a criminal, not because he committed any offence, but because his opponent was suddenly taken off' by a distemper to which mankind is heir ? Men have been killed at cricket by an actual blow ot the ball or the bat, and no football season goes out without some direct fatality being attributed to it. Yet the police charge no one with " unlawful" assault, whatever description of assault that may be. The season before last a young man died in Sydney from apoplexy supervening on a game of football, and still the police made no sign. If wo remember rightly, Inspector-General Fosbery said here not long ago that boxing contests were within tho law, and of that there can be no question. A boxer in hitting an opponnnt no raoro commits an assault than does a singlestick or foil player w,ho raps or thrusts at his antagonist in the course of an attack. The difference in favour of boxing is this : tho boxer covers up the weapon which natme has given Him, while the' other artists add to thoir'vigour the assistance of a cudgel or a small sword. A clear regulation for boxing conte&ts will never be laid down until the present power dt indiscriminate action is taken ' away „from policemen, who have quite enough tax on their mciital energies when they are?running in a drunkard or a vagrant.