CORRESPONDENCE. "THE NOBLE ART."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 315, 5 January 1909, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE.

"THE NOBLE ART."

To the Editor. |i Sir,—When you stepped into the ring 011 Thursday morning and, throwing the gloves to right and left, proceeded, kauck'e-bared and unrestrainedly, to deal out "stoush"' of a more or less mixed character to a popular form of spurt, yuu "let yourself go" in a regrettable manner, ami your extraordinary statements, attacking, as they do. nut merely the art of boxing but the character and fair fame of the Anglo-Saxon race, cannot pas.- unchallenged. I am well aware that an outsider who dares to question the thundcrings of His Al l-, jesty the Editor takes tin- risk ol being ''outed" by a blow from Webster's Dictionary or of suffering a running lire of upper-cuts for his temerity. Still, I am a partisan only of fair play, and, taking the risk of being branded a mere criticastor, I will, with your permission, oppose you in the ring. In the first round you make the pace a scorcher. You state: ''The sight of two men wlm have only brute force to recommend them pounding each other until neither can see and both' are temporarily reduced to physical. wrecks is one that has a peculiar charm for the AngloSaxon race." That is surely the moot unpatriotic ebullition that has ever emanated from a Britisher, born or naturalised. In the first place, health and strength a fine physique are necessary to take up boxing with any chance of success; but, unaided by science, this brawn you speak of is a mere puncliing-bag—it is powerless. You might put Hackwismith against Burns, and the latter would place him hors-de-comibat in half a round, lie 'would not attempt to "pound" him as you state, but would merely tap liim on "a vulnerable part and render him temporarily more or less helpless. The boxer is a'student of anatomy, and the "physical wrecks" you- mention nre mere myths. As, perhaps, you arc well aware, a man may take up rnniiiii;;, swimming, football, or almost any kind of sport whether he has a weak heart, defective lungs, or groggy limbs, but before entering the Iwxing arena tli" pugilist has to pass a medical n:a:i and be thoroughly sound in all respects. A man may be ''knocked out" at football, and his friends gather round and rub him, and when they have dragged him on to his feet the game proceeds, the injured one oftentimes following if in a luilf-dazed fashion. But in boxing, when a man goes down he is given only ten seconds in which to rise unaided, and if he cannot come up in that time he is counted out and that is the end of him.

You do the Britisher an unwarranted amount of injury when you say, in the second round :—" The fact that many thousands of people are willing to pay "large sums of money for the feeility of seeing two men lash each other for something under an hour is a tremendous accusation that we as a race arc the most pitiable hypocrites." It is unfortunate that you have failed to grasp the fact that boxing depends more on science than on strength, and you appear to have mixed up boxing with prize-fighting, which is a very different thing. The love of fighting which is born in the Britisher is, for the most part the love of a fair light, of an unblemished exhibition of skill and strength, and not " the sight of two men who have only brute force, etc.," nor "the feeility 'of seeing two men lash each other.'' The Burns-Johnson contest which was the. cause of this unbridled onslaught was far from being a mere " pounding match,' and at the timo. of writing it was extremely unfortunate that the Press had no more tangible information than that contained in a ridiculous cabled report, upon which to base scathing attacks. The report flashed across the wires was full of press sensationalism and so devoid of true boxing information that it was at once apparent to the veriest tyro that '' the man at the other end " was not an expert at the game and consequently the cable was greatly discounted in value. A remarkably inconsistent press puffed out and intensified such choice excerpts as "on the jaw;" "vociferous hooting;" "battering his opponent," and "are you . going to fight, you cur," to furnish "good copy" while the excitement lasted, and tlien turned round and hulled a veritable whirlwind of abuses at the j same subject. Tn the third round the oft-quoted instances of the shocking brutality of certain low-down prize-figh-ters comes to light and they arc certainly bad, but happily such occurrences are not common and it is far from logical to condemn a sport or anything else on account of the misdemeanors of a minority of its votaries. Because there are editors who use their positions for the purposes of blackmail it would be ridiculous to class editors in general as blackmailers. It would be rank heresy to preach to New Zealandcrs that football is a brutal and bloody game because nt rare times it has been disgraced by "men who have only brute loree to recommend them;" by men who have lost their "self control, evenness of temper, magnanimity, etc.; ' by so.ne who ia the heat of the contest have made use of unseemly and frequently obscene language; by others who by rough play have maimed and even killed an "opponent; by otliers again who are not "punching" but football " luoney-iuakiaL' machines."

luvircj-uuiauig uiui-uui.3. The fourth round deals wjth the character of those engaged iu the sport, and in mentioning the names of old-tinicrs who fought before the days of big purses you advance a very hollow argument. A man's pay runs according to his working value, and if Johnson can earn ±'lo,ooo a year in the ring he would he very foolish to throw it up for a paltry Jt2UO per annum at a trade. It is certain that if JtSurns' appearance ou the boards is worth £OOOO to Jiclntosh, the latter individual is not engaged in pliil.inthrophy aloae and his " cut'' after all is paid is somewhere in the region of £IO,OOO. In the fifth you open badly by asserting :—" We nave not until recently produced any glove fighters in Sew Zcalandcrs." One ucs only to swing Dan Crccdon, Bob Filzsimmons, Hilly Murphy, Otto Cribb and Hy. Jjaing of the old hands at yen to send you back to your " corner" in a badly bruised condition. Again in the sixth you say :—" If all the virtues of the British have been purchased by excellence in the fistic arena, it is remarkable that all the pioneers of Xew Zealand were not boxers." In the pioneer days arguments and disputes were generally settled by fisticuffs. If a man spit in your face these days you have him up for assault, but fifty years ago you would have given him a straight right and ended the matter (piic-k and lively. Major Atkinson, one of Vcw

Zealand's ablest Premiers, was the finest ainatpur boxer who ever left England. Bishop Selwyn often rubbed religion in with a swinging left. The late Mellaril Seddon lias n)i)>i>aivi] in the ring on (he West Coast "diggings ;" and others too numerous to mention. Seventhly, "only two men in ten thousand, know how to box sufficiently well to draw a Wig house." That may he so. Two men may he expert enough at anything—theatricals, running, swimming, hoxiug - to he able to draw " a hig house." If Ihey can supply the amusement, the tremendous excitement stirred up by ability or art or talent, well, pay (hem bv all means ! lint it does not' follow that the tli)!W who look on at a boxing contest do not pick up " points" as well as amusement and " thrill." And it is gratifying to see such people as the Onvernor, Sir Joseph Ward. Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of religion patronising the splendidly managed boxing tournaments which take place in file Dominion from time to time. In the next few rounds one gets tired reading the far fetched sarcasm re boxers holding the jnost prominent positions, in times of peace or war, and one wonders whether the success of Wellington at Waterloo was in any small measure (hie | to the lighting spirit which imbued his soldiers, the spirit that was surely manifested in the instance of poor Shaw, the f.ife-guardsnian who was found upon the field of battle surrounded by l,hc bodies of eight Frenchmen whom he had accounted /or with his bare (i.sts. One wonders if the power swayed by Lord Charles Beresford was in any degree traceable to his ability to heat Jim Mace in six rounds. In conclusion, it might he mentioned that it is cnily a poor sportsman who cannot sec anything hut the violent

I rush of brawny men upon the football I field ; the viciousness of the " terrific r left" iu the boxing arena. To describe the boxing of such scienced iineu as j Burns and Johnson as a " pounding t mateh " savors of the puerile. If your enemy be a Frenchman ho may kick you ; an Italian may stab you in the back; an American pepper you with a 'Coltsfoot revolver; a Japanese smash /every bone in your body and strangle you ; that is their way of fighting, hut .we are proud to say that an Englishman will meet you face to face, will give or take a bare-listed thrashing with enthusiasm ; will fight to a finish, and, when the struggle is decided will [Hit the whole of his remaining strength into a hearty handshake and will say, , "It was a good fight. T*t us be friends," and enmity is unknown. The three golden rules of boxing should be pasted in everybody's liat:' " Hit straight; never below the belt; and never hit a man, when lie's down."—J am, 'etc., DUX.

[''Lux" is very prolix, but far from convincing. If the Hurns-.lohnsovi light were so scientific and harmless, why was it necessary for Hie police to intervene? If enmity is an unknown quantity in prize-fighting how is it that the punching match in question was characterised by the display, of so much venom on the part of both contestants? There is nothing noble or edifying about prizefighting. As we have already said, it is sordid, degrading and brutal. The Sydney exhibition was particularly so. There was no glory, nothing inspiring about it. It was simply a fight for the boodle attached to it. Prize-fight-ing is a different thing from boxing, to which, we took care to state, no exception can be taken, for as a means of exercise, of the development of the muscle and skill it stands in the same category as swimming, wrestling, etc. Boxing, of the clean and amateur order, deserves to be encouraged; prize-fighting of the Hums-Johnson older, unwholesome and mercenary, should he condemned and stumped out. That the Government of New South Wales, which has intimated that in future prize-fighting will be prohibited within that State, has realised its duty in this respect, is tile one satisfactory feature of the recent Saturnalia and a justification for the publicity newspapers of necessity gave it.—Ed.J