The Boxing Boom.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2887, 1 May 1888, Page 3

The Boxing Boom.

Hero is what "Pcndragon" says about the Jato boxing boom in Eng-land:-"Signs and tokens are not wanting that' the great boxiug boom' has pretty nigh spent itself, One or two entertainment mongers, who thought they had nothing to do, so as to get a share of the money which fools are so proverbially ready to part with, but put up the pseudo-champions have managed to come in at the wrong end of the epidemic, and to drop a bit instead of mailing it, I happen to know that one ' assault' at which tiie bold Smith and the no less bold Kilrain were the chief attraction, and which was described in papers intoi ested in keeping up appearances as ai

undoubted success, if not in its way a dazzling triumph, was a somewhat ghastly pecuniary failure. It is to be hoped that the bold Smith and the no less bold Kilrain—bold, that is, 'when they have only to face one another—have made the most of the good time that is so rapidly passing a.vay; thoy may live to bo curious spaciaiens of longevity as they are now ditto dittoes of prize-fighting ability, and not see anything like its reappearance. Spasmodic revivals are never intended by those who bring them about, or who aro affected by them to be' as arranged by endurance.' A light between Sullivan and Smith, planned and conducted upon sports-

manlike principles-a light, I say, and not a burlesque—might yet succeed in arresting the popular fancy now so fast fading away ; but even then, and for the same reason that we lost heart in our professional sculling directly Hanlan came and showed us what poor things our champions really were, boxing in this Island would very likely go out altogether after such a meeting, fcio perhaps it is as well the game has been played as it lias, and that, though it has made real lovers and admirers and understanders of boxing uncertain whether to be amused or angry, ' the boom' has come pretty near its end without causing the English side of it to look as small and mean as it might have done under other and more straightlbrwardlike conconditions, As (I hope) a sportsman, and one who has some right to say he knows what he is talking about, I should like to express my personal wish that the opportunity as offered by the public and the powers that be to rehabilitate professional bruising had not been devoted to such always selfish and oftentimes ridiculous ends, and having said that, I think I have said all that isnow worth saying."