THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 231 



"Why," replied our hero, "the chairman told the 

 jury that the learned counsel had given a wrong inter- 

 pretation of the law, and, commenting upon the evidence, 

 considered it conclusive against the defendants." 



" Then, of course, they were found guilty," observed 

 the Captain. 



" Certainly not," answered Raby ; " they were not only 

 acquitted by the verdict of the jury that tried them on 

 the first indictment, but upon two other indictments 

 arising out of the same transaction it was thought ex- 

 pedient not to offer any evidence against them, and 

 verdicts of acquittal passed." 



" And what were the principal objections to pugilistic 

 exhibitions urged by your father and uncle?" inquired 

 the Captain. 



" I do not, as this moment, recollect what my father 

 said on the subject," replied Raby ; "but my uncle drew 

 on antiquity for the arguments he made use of against 

 any such public displays, especially in cases wherein 

 money is the proffered reward. In the first place, he 

 contended, that a cold indifference to the sight of blood 

 and wounds was no characteristic of the true hero ; and, 

 looking back to antiquity, pronounced the Athletes, on 

 the authority of Euripides, to have been the worst soldiers 

 in Greece so much so, indeed, as to induce Solon to 

 persuade the Athenians to allot the rewards bestowed 

 upon them to the maintenance of poor orphans, rather 

 than to them. Neither did gladiatorial exhibitions 

 continue in the Roman state after it ceased to be pagan. 

 Secondly, although it might have been good policy in the 

 Romans to impress their soldiers with a just contempt of 

 the power of elephants, by having a considerable number 

 of those animals driven through the circus at Rome by a 

 few slaves, armed with blunted javelins ; and although, 

 in Homer's time, bodily strength met with the greatest 

 honours, being necessary to the subsistence of little 

 governments still, as our soldiers have no elephants to 

 contend with, and as, since the invention of gunpowder, 

 physical strength and personal exertion, so much depended 

 upon by the ancients, are now not essential, such ex- 

 hibitions are useless. Men are more upon an equality in 

 fighting than they were in the early ages of the world. 

 He admitted, however, that the spirit-stirring descrip- 

 tions of single combats with the fist or the cestus those 



