BOXING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 31 July 1913, Page 4

BOXING.

The popularity attending the noble art of self-defence, or, Bhall we better describe it, the science of converting the other fellow's physiognomy into something that his mother would not know, was strikingly evidenced in Masterton last night, when about a thousand people assembled in the Town Hall to witness a set-to between a couple of professiorial '.'knock-ers-out." Strangely enough, the gathering was graced by the presence of two females, who- seemed to enjoy the business—until blood began to llow. . Then they left. But one may be tempted to*ask, why is it that a thousand men—and two women—assemble to see two men mauling each other about? It cannot be the brutal instinct. Nor can we imagine it to be the inherent love of sport. Rather do we think that it is the old English lust, for fight, the admiration of pluck and valour, the applauding of stubborn resistance and endurance. We may be wrong, but we believe that Britishers love -a flglit because they are born fighters. But how comes it that we have to play second-fiddle in the ring to a-black man? Our pugilistic friends may be able to answer this query. We cannot.