20 Among Men and Horses. 



they are ' softer.' They appear to have left the cultivation 

 of athletics almost entirely to the class below them, which 

 is chiefly represented by shop assistants and the sons of small 

 shopkeepers, who furnish a large proportion of the cycling, 

 football, running, boxing, and swimming champions. I grant 

 that these amateurs and promateurs (to borrow the expres- 

 sion of poor Sampson of the Referee) are a good deal 

 ' mixed ' ; but the fact remains that for every five hundred 

 lawn tennis players who get their commissions in the Army, 

 there is not one who can box, or ten who can ride across 

 country. My old friend ' Young Reid,' who used to keep 

 a room for teaching boxing in Lower John Street, off Golden 

 Square, and who died not long ago, often bewailed to me the 

 decadence of ' the noble art ' among the youth of the wealthier 

 classes. He had been one of the cleverest light-weights who 

 had ever fought within a 24-foot ring, and by his civility, 

 tact and honesty had had a very large connection, as a 

 teacher, among the nobility and gentry of England. Though 

 many of his old pupils continued their practice with Reid, 

 few of their sons cared to put on the gloves. As the old 

 man was growing feeble, he was always glad to see me at 

 his room, so that I might spar with any of his pupils who 

 wished to have some ' loose play,' which in this case was gener- 

 ally a one-sided affair ; for Reid made me promise never to hit 

 one of them, except on the shoulder where they could not get 

 hurt. ' If you hurt them,' he used to say with a solemn shake 

 of the head, ' they'll go away and I'll never see them again.' 

 His prophecy was proved to be correct on two occasions, 

 when irritated by chaff from a pupil with whom I was spar- 

 ring, he asked me to hit hard. I do not think that this 

 objection to getting knocked about with the gloves arose in 

 the slightest from fear of ' punishment ' ; but from disinclina- 

 tion to get marked about the face. The more civilised we 

 become, the more averse are we from incurring risks of 

 personal injury. Take for instance the Irishmen and High- 

 landers of sixty years ago and compare their pugnacity with 



