CHAPTER XXXII 



THE NOBLE ART OF SELF-DEFENCE 



In reading Digby Grand again I was struck with the 

 change that has come over the sports of the man about 

 town since that book was written. Even ten years after it 

 was published, when I first knew my London, there was 

 something sordid and degrading about what was commonly 

 known as Sport. It was thought the correct thing to 

 patronise sparring matches at the saloons attached to 

 public-houses kept by retired prize-fighters, or ratting 

 matches run by such celebrities in the canine world as 

 Jemmy Shaw. Now and then the ardent lover of " The 

 Fancy " was privileged to assist at a " little mill with the 

 ' raw 'uns ' " in some secluded stable in the slums, or a 

 main of cocks in some evil-smelling cellar. When I look 

 back, I realise how disreputable were the places we fre- 

 quented and the people with whom we consorted. And 

 yet there was a fascination about these unconventional 

 sports. We youngsters thought that we were " seeing life " 

 when we hob-nobbed with bruisers and dog-fanciers in low- 

 ceilinged tavern parlours, and sat cheek by jowl with 

 Bohemian blackguards of all sorts. But what a change 

 has come over the sports of the man-about-town ! As I 

 sit in the well-lighted, airy hall of the National Sporting 

 Club, and watch boxing as clever as any one could wish to 

 see, I think of nights with the Rum-pum-pas at old Nat 

 Langham's, and I admit unhesitatingly that the London 

 sportsman of to-day is far better catered for than his pre- 

 decessor of fifty years ago. And he is not so villainously 

 swindled as we were ; we never got our money's worth or 

 anything like it. We paid preposterous prices for execrable 

 liquors. We put down our sovereigns for a rattling good 



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