380 Manly and Athletic Exercises. 



He asked me did I wish to contend that the British youth of the 

 present day are not as manly and well bred as in the days of 

 Mendoza or Beau Brummel, or when Horace Walpole with other 

 members of the aristocracy used to attend executions ? 



He stated that it was all clap-trap to say that the rabble who 

 crowd to see a fight between two navvies, go to see fair-play, or to 

 admire manly pluck, or skilful science, " It is the untamed savage 

 within us." And he moreover stated, that he himself had seen 

 bloody fights enough at fairs and races, attracted to them by a strange 

 fascination, when " he knew he was not in the right place 5" and he 

 further added, that the attraction to all such sights (executions, 

 prize-fights, and women endangering their lives on the tight-rope) 

 is the same feeling of morbid excitement. 



He asked why the arguments in favour of fostering a pugnacious 

 principle among boys at school should not equally apply to girls. 

 He tells us of " Saturnalian epochs " which used to take place at his 

 school half a century ago, just before the holidays, when the little 

 boys were urged on to fight by the big ones. 



And he wound up his letter with this monstrous remark, " If 

 prize-fighting is the manly British pastime that it is represented, 

 why do not our noblemen and gentlemen put themselves upon an 

 equality with the players as they do in other sports ? If they did, 

 and a few of them were knocked into the other world, the ring 

 would soon be put down." Why, he might just as well say that 

 every "gentleman" should be obliged to serve in the ranks as a 

 private soldier. 



This was his case, and this is my reply. 



I am asked how far I would go, and what am I asking for ? I 

 am asking for the opponents of the ring to state their case fairly 

 not to support it by false arguments and I want no clap-traps to be 

 used on either side. I would go thus far and no farther. I would 

 do all that lay in my power once again to restore the British prize- 

 ring to the position it held in the days when Crib and Spring were 

 champions, and when those scenes of brutality, violence, and intimi- 

 dation which are the characteristics of prize-battles at the pre- 



