230 THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



counsel for the prosecution has endeavoured to work upon; 

 the feelings of the jury by stating that such encounters 

 sometimes terminate fatally. The common law of England 

 had, however, made wrestling, cudgel-playing, and even 

 bull-baiting, legal : people assembled to witness or engage 

 in those national pastimes those manly exercises of 

 Englishmen did not as much as come within the defini- 

 tion of a riotous or unlawful assembly, yet wrestling 

 and bull-baiting often terminated fatally. Such sports, 

 however, preserved the health, the vigour, and the 

 characteristic courage of the English people, and our 

 brave ancestors had, therefore, looked upon them with 

 indulgence. He asked the jury to look at the practice of 

 boxing, not through the medium of a mawkish senti- 

 mentality, but with the feelings of sensible and manly 

 Englishmen, who partook of the generous courage which 

 had raised this country above all the other nations on the 

 earth. He had heard it observed, by one of the greatest 

 advocates in Westminster Hall, that the same God who 

 made man rational also made him resentful. It was, 

 indeed, characteristic of Englishmen to be resentful of 

 insult, but not vindictive. They preferred returning an 

 insult or a blow at the instant, to cherishing a spiteful 

 recollection for an opportunity of dark and malignant 

 revenge. They were prone to the manly habit of fighting 

 out their quarrels on the spot, and retaining no ill-will 

 afterwards. They did not, like the people of Italy, 

 avenge their exasperated feelings by the cowardly use of 

 the stiletto ; nor, like the people of Portugal or Spain, 

 by the knife ; neither did they gouge and maim their 

 antagonists with the savage barbarism of North America. 

 The practice of boxing in a ring taught them the 

 observance of fair play. To that the infrequency of 

 assassination in England was to be attribiited. He did 

 not mean to say that fighting of any description was not 

 an evil, but he confidently asserted that it could not be 

 put down without a greater evil arising out of its 

 suppression. Boxing - matches could not be abolished 

 without encouraging assassination ; and to such a lament- 

 able change in the English character he was sure the 

 jury would not allow themselves to be made instru- 

 mental.'" 



" May I ask what was the result of the trial ? " said the 

 Captain. 



