Manly and Athletic Exercises. 387 



foreign vocabulary. Such a thing as a fair stand-up fight is scarcely 

 known out of England ; and when a man is lying defenceless at 

 his opponent's feet, then is the time (anywhere but in England) to 

 punish him. Still, however, I should care little, if I had only one 

 man to deal with, how he fought whether he kicked me on the 

 side of my head with his sabot, after the manner of our volatile 

 and polite neighbours across the Channel ; whether he tried the 

 German- Yankee hug, or came at me with a swinging round open- 

 handed blow on the ear, as is the fashion in Sweden so long as he 

 came at me alone, and we were left to settle our little passage of 

 arms without interference j for I will back any good man possessing 

 a knowledge of sparring to lick a rough, even at his own game, by 

 straight knock-down blows. But when foreigners fight, they 

 scarcely ever let two men fairly fight it out. Three or four will set 

 on one ; and it is very little use a poor fellow crying out that he has 

 had enough, with two or three men on him, not one of whom has 

 the slightest idea of fair play. I am not contending that an English- 

 man is to expect that every man with whom he falls out must be 

 obliged to fight after English fashion. I do not complain of the 

 foreigner's method of fighting when no deadly weapons are used. 

 Like the brutes (and man is little better than a brute when his 

 worst passions are roused), different men have different tactics ; but 

 still, whatever his mode of fighting, there should at least be that 

 generous impulse implanted in the breast of every man which will 

 forbid him to ti ample on a fallen foe, and that honest manly feeling 

 which will not allow him to use a knife or any other weapon 

 against an unarmed adversary. 



It is for this reason that I always have upheld, and always will up- 

 hold as far as lies in my power, the fair and manly custom of British 

 boxing not solely because it teaches men a less brutal and better 

 mode of fighting, but because it implants in the breast of every 

 man who has witnessed a prize-fight fairly conducted, a system of 

 manly forbearance, and a detestation of that cowardly practice 

 of striking a fallen foe, or setting two men upon one like wild 

 beasts. 



C C 2 



