o 



8 TJie PytcJiley Htmt, Past and Present, [chap. u. 



about to suffer defeat, as soon as they saw that tbeh' 

 money was in jeopardy, breaking into tbe ring and 

 putting an end to tbe contest. Tbe French journals 

 teemed with wrath at tbe brutal exhibition that had been 

 transferred from our shores to theirs ; and in this igno- 

 minious fashion, a hideous practice and national disgrace 

 have received, it is to be hoped, their death-blow. A 

 Paris correspondent of one of the London daily papers 

 sent the following account of the affair. " To-day there 

 was a real boxing-match at Acheres in the forest of St. 

 Germain, which horrified the representatives of the Paris 

 press who were invited to attend it. The combatants 

 were Smith and Greenfield, who, fearing police inter- 

 ference if they fought in England, came over here with a 

 party of about 250 amateurs of the ''noble art of self- 

 defence/' They were told by a member of the horsey 

 population at Maison-Lafitte that there was a clearing in 

 the forest at Acheres which was an ideal spot for a P.P. 

 fight. Twenty mail-coaches took the chief members of 

 the party out there in the afternoon ; the others went by 

 rail. Smith and his friend fought for forty minutes. 

 There were twenty-five rounds before the bottle-holder 

 of Greenfield threw up the sponge. Greenfield was fear- 

 fully punished, and seemed terribly exhausted while he 

 was being attended to. Smith Avas vociferously cheered 

 by his backers. The fight was for £500. A forester, 

 who was looking on, fainted when he saw how Greenfield 

 was being punished. I believe the Paris press will call 

 upon the ^Minister of the Interior to prevent this 

 peculiar kind of sport being acclimatized in France." 

 The above very inaccurate account of this example of 

 civilization, as understood on the English side of the 



