THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



and not through the means of .soups, jellies, or rich sauces, 

 and still less of spirituous liquors, or large quantities of wine, 

 which are all found detrimental both to health and strength. 



' Then look at our own case. Within the last ten days, 

 you and I have hunted nine times, the distances to and from 

 the places of meeting averaging twenty miles. Now, adding 

 thereunto the several tine runs we have seen, during the late 

 succession of good sport, we may safely reckon upon having 

 ridden fifty miles per day, putting the extra exertion of riding 

 over the country out of the question. Have either of us, let 

 me ask, felt the slightest degree of fatigue from the doings of 

 these ten days ? On the contrary, have we not felt invigor- 

 ated, and, in every respect, in better health ? Have we not 

 enjoyed our meals, and our wine, and our beds, rising in the 

 morning with a freshness not perceptible at other periods of 

 the year, in the summer months especially, when our exertions 

 necessarily abate ? Rely upon it, then, my young friend,' 

 added the Captain, with no slight emphasis, ' manly exercises 

 of all sorts should be encouraged in the youth of this country ; 

 and although the practice of prize-fighting cannot altogether 

 be justified on moral grounds — inasmuch as the training two 

 persons for the express purpose of inflicting serious injury to 

 each other, in cold blood, at the hazard of sacrificing their 

 lives, while thousands of their fellow-men are looking on, for 

 their amusement, is undoubtedly opposed to Christian feeling ; 

 still, up to the present time, considerably more good than evil 

 has arisen from it, in upholding the national character for 

 courage and fair play, and enabling Englishmen to boast, not 

 merely of their courage and fair play in their quarrels, but 

 that England is ihe only country under tJoe sun, in which the 

 knife or the dagger is not used to avenge insults or injuries. 

 There are, I am sorry to add, some signs of a departure from 

 the strictly honourable conduct hitherto displayed in the 

 British ring, the consequence of Jews becoming prominent 

 characters in it : should this become manifest, it will lose the 

 patronage of those highly respectable persons who now support 

 it so liberally — many of them on principle — and I have no 

 hesitation in saying, that my support, earnest as it has 

 hitherto been, will, in that case, be withdrawn. But it is not 

 only from the practice of boxing that national advantages are 

 derived : the use of the cudgel and back-sword, or single-stick 



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