CHAPTER X. 



FOUR-FOOTED PRIZE-FIGHTERS. 



In Anglo-Saxonclom circus-combats have gone out of 

 fashion. The efforts of Bergh & Co. have promoted the 

 introduction of less destructive, if not more instructive, 

 amusements, though, as Herbert Spencer observes, all 

 our more exciting pastimes are still prize-fights in dis- 

 guise. But in the lands of the Latin races the undis- 

 guised form of the sport is still too popular to be illegal, 

 and frequent enough to enable even unwilling spectators 

 to convince themselves of one curious fact, — viz., that 

 death in the arena must, on the whole, have been the least 

 disagreeable way of crossing the Styx. It is the easiest 

 death. The old Berserkers knew what they were about 

 when they prayed to die in battle rather than in bed : in 

 the heat of combat wounds are actually unfelt ; excite- 

 ment operates like an anaesthetic, and the fighter reels 

 into Nirvana as in a trance. A rough-and-tumble fight is 

 far more exciting than the machine-war of our modern 

 armies, but even modern soldiers know that, in battle, 

 injuries not involving the demolishment of a motive 

 organ often remain unnoticed till they announce them- 

 selves through exhaustion or such external symptoms 



237 



