Manly and Athletic Exercises, 387 



foreign vocabulary. Such a thing as a fair stand-up fight is scarcely 

 known out of England ; and when a man is lying defenceless at 

 his opponent's feet, then is the time (anywhere but in England) to 

 punish him. Still, however, I should care little, if I had only one 

 man to deal with, how he fought — whether he kicked me on the 

 side of my head with his sabot, after the manner of our volatile 

 and polite neighbours across the Channel j whether he tried the 

 German- Yankee hug, or came at me with a swinging round open- 

 handed blow on the ear, as is the fashion in Sweden — so long as he 

 came at me alone, and we were left to settle our little passage of 

 arms without interference j for I will back any good man possessing 

 a knowledge of sparring to lick a rough, even at his own game, by 

 straight knock-down blows. But when foreigners fight, they 

 scarcely ever let two men fairly fight it out. Three or four will set 

 on one 3 and it is very little use a poor fellow crying out that he has 

 had enough, with two or three men on him, not one of whom has 

 the shghtest idea of fair play. I am not contending that an English- 

 man is to expect that every man with whom he falls out must be 

 obliged to fight after English fashion. I do not complain of the 

 foreigner's method of fighting when no deadly weapons are used. 

 Like the brutes (and man is little better than a brute when his 

 worst passions are roused), different men have different tactics 3 but 

 still, whatever his mode of fighting, there should at least be that 

 generous impulse implanted in the breast of every man which will 

 forbid him to trample on a fallen foe, and that honest manly feeling 

 which will not allow him to use a knife or any other weapon 

 against an unarmed adversary. 



It is for this reason that I always have upheld, and always will up- 

 hold as far as lies in my power, the fair and manly custom of British 

 boxing — not solely because it teaches men a less brutal and better 

 mode of fighting, but because it implants in the breast of every 

 man who has witnessed a prize-fight fairly conducted, a system of 

 manly forbearance, and a detestation of that cowardly practice 

 of striking a fallen foe, or setting two men upon one like wild 

 beasts. 



c c 2 



