THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 227 



'whom I have no trifling expectations, I do not publicly 

 avow myself as such." 



" My dear fellow," said the Captain, " you will excuse 

 my saying, that both your father and your uncle take a 

 wrong view of the practice and effects of what is called 

 prize-fighting, very probably confounding it with the 

 fights of the gladiators in ancient times and upon a lower 

 scale it certainly does admit of a slight comparison in 

 which men were either in part deprived of resistance, or 

 opposed to very unequal force. No man now enters the 

 ring but upon perfectly equal terms, or on as nearly such 

 as circumstances will allow ; and the display of manly 

 intrepidity, firmness, gallantry, activity, strength, and 

 presence of mind, which these contests call forth, is an 

 honour to the English nation, and such as no man need 

 be ashamed of viewing with interest, pride, and delight ; 

 and we may safely predict that, if the magistrates, or 

 Government, through a mistaken notion of preserving the 

 public peace, succeed in suppressing them, there will be 

 an end of that sense of honour, and spirit, and gallantry, 

 which distinguish the common people of this country 

 from that of all others ; and which is not only the best 

 guardian of their morals, but, perhaps, the only security 

 now left either for our civil liberty or political independence. 

 If Englishmen are restrained from fighting occasionally 

 for prizes and honorary distinctions, they will soon cease 

 to fight at all, and decide their private quarrels with 

 daggers or knives, instead of fists, in which case the lower 

 orders will become a base rabble of cowards and assassins, 

 ready at any time to sacrifice the higher to the avarice or 

 ambition of a foreign foe. No people under the sun are 

 less cruel than the English now are, or so little prone to 

 shed blood ; and, even admitting there is some cruelty in 

 prize-fighting, experience has shown that cruel sports do 

 not create a cruel people ; and, strange to say, the love of 

 gladiators among the Romans increased as the people 

 began to be civilized, and as their manners, in other 

 respects, became more refined. Even the excellent and 

 humane Titus encouraged all such exhibitions of science 

 and manly courage ; and we find Pliny, in his panegyric 

 on the stiil more excellent Trajan, stating his belief, that 

 the public shows, exhibited at that emperor's expense, had 

 no tendency to weaken or debauch the soul ; on the 

 contrary, that they excited the courage of the spectators ; 



