250 THE SPORTING WORLD. 



places, on the nights of exhibition a proper 

 decorum is observed by those assembled there, 

 and enforced by the owner of the house if it 

 is a repectable one and in a respectable 

 situation. 



We now get on very debateable ground. I 

 do not allude to the parties usually engaged in 

 such matters, but to the difference of opinion 

 on such subjects, and those whose avocation is 

 principally confined to it. I now allude to 

 pugilists and pugilistic encounters. 



In most of the acts of men much may be 

 said for and against them ; few are so con- 

 spicuously laudable that they do not admit of 

 some objectionable point or other, and few are 

 to our comfort so black as not to have some 

 palliative circumstances, some redeeming point to 

 lessen the enormity of their perpetration. 



Among many men of non-sporting propensity, 

 and indeed among some who are sportsmen, the 

 pugilist is set down as a ruffian without one of. 



