THE FIGHT FOR THE BELT.
Ix spite dell the efforts of Mr. Radfield, and the secret instigators of the police all over England, Tom Sayers and Jack Heenan, the Champion of England and the challenger from America, have fought a stout fight, and have touched a responsive chord, low, if you like, in the scale, "very, very low," but profound and vital in the nature of the Anglo-Saxon race. We have been amused at the affectation of disgust expressed by those journals which have not hesitated to sate their readers with details of the combat. Snowing that all ranks and conditions of men have taken a deep interest in this incident, yet the writers in the daily journals, even the giant of them all, have written with the fear of Mrs. Grundy full upon them, when it is notorious that the dear old lady herself read through the whole of that splendid narrative with which the Times favoured the world at large. Far better would it be if the indignation of the sentimentalists, and. the faithful subjects of what Mr. Carlyle calls mere " l3eaverdom," were directed against those of their own order who cheat, and lie, and gamble, and de- fraud, all to promote the welfare of society and—their own. The universal interest in the combat shows that it is not wholly had and mean, like the trickeries of the traders. There must have been something in the encounter that appealed to universal sym- pathy, for the sympathy was electric. And there was something. Not the pleasure which morbid minds take in scenes of blood and violence, but the admiration which it is impossible to withhold from men who have displayed, in a degree so remarkable, courage, fortitude, and temper. And not only these qualities in the field, but qualities equally high during the training to fit them for the field—temperance, chastity, submission to discipline, victory over animal desires and animal appetites. Few of their crities have ever subjeeted themselves to anything so wholesome.
Voleati non fit injuria. If two men are willing and desirous to fight, why should. they be prevented P If, indeed, they take out lethal weapons, then the case is different, for, in the use of lethal weapons death may instantly ensue. A duel with sword or pis- tol is a trial of courage, but no trial of that fortitude, and temper under stinging pain, which characterize a fight with clenched fists. A pugilistic encounter proves to the uttermost the very stuff of which a man is made. We should be very sorry to see the prize-ring become again a public spectacle, as it was in what are falsely called the good old days of Cribb and Castlereagh. i
But there s really something that smacks of the fussiness of pa- ternal despotism in the frantic hunts after pugilists upon which the police are impelled by some of the " unco guid," who care- fully keep in the dark. Public decorum is a great thing, but we should take care that it does not degenerate into pharisaical affec-
' tation shrouding under its broad skirt a hundred. vicious prac- tices far more dangerous to society than pugilism.
There are some characteristics of the fight which are quite as epic as the strife on "Chevy Chace" or the "Combat of the Thirty." Sayers, as Champion of England and holder of the belt of honour, was bound, in honour, to meet all challengers come they from what land they might. A young man of a cognate race, an American crossed the Atlantic and Bent in his challenge. his act of daring is the key to much of the interest unquestionably felt by the public. Taller by a head, broader in the chest, longer in the arm, younger in years, than his antagonist, nevertheless he was the challenger, and Sayers was compelled to accept the challenge, and measure his skill and prowess with one who came to snatch from him the honour won in many a hard. fought encounter. In these circum- stances alone Englishmen must feel an interest, let the prudes in trousers say what they please. An unequal combat is a sure passport to sympathy, at least in England. But this was not all. When the two men met for the first time in that Hampshire meadow, and heartily shook hands, it so chanced that Heenan, the challenger, won the right to select his position. We regret to say that he did not show that chivalrous feeling on this occasion which distinguished the old heroes of the ring. Pearce would not hurt Jem Belcher's remaining eye when he had his rival at a disadvantage ; nor would Spring injure any more his gallant antagonist Langan, whose fault was the British one of not knowing when he was beaten. Heenan might have chosen a position which would have given each man a fair share of the sunlight. He might have placed himself across the ring. He took post, however, on higher ground and with his back to the sun. The shorter man, therefore, had the lower ground, and the sun's rays in his eyes. Fair and according to rule, but not chivalrous. Then, when the men had fought for a few minutes, Sayers, in stopping a lightning-like stroke from his rival, had his right arm, that reserve with which, like a good general, he won his former battles, irretrievably damaged. And thus it happened that the lighter and shorter man, had to con- tend for the rest of the combat, with one arm. A man must have a heart stuffed with invoices or peace society pamphlets, who does not feel a glow of admiration for a hero who could go on for i nearly two hours opposing one arm to two, and go on, n spite of knock-down blows and crushing hits, steadily getting the better of his bulky antagonist. The measure of Heenan's brave and en- during qualities, of his temper and fortitude, is the length of the time required by his hardy and agile foe to reduce him to a state which would have rendered him incapable of continuing the con- test, had not the police appeared and. the ring been broken. Both men had endured, without flinching in the least, the most severe punishment. Both had shown skill and prowess, and bot- tom. But Heenan was fast losing the use of his eyes, and had the fight continued must soon have become blind. The interfe- rence of the police led. to the stopping of the combat, and it takes rank among the greatest of drawn battles.
Neither England nor America has any reason to be ashamed of her champion. Both have displayed those qualities which we ad- mire in the knights of another period, and in the soldiers of our own' even when displayed in a bad cause. We may be pained at the details of the light, but we should remember that these two men willingly and cheerfully bore what we shudder at, and that the shocking scene is mere child's play compared with the immo- lation of half a million of men, women, and children by some con- queror in pursuit of barren ambition. Depend upon it there are many things which are more dangerous to society and. more horrible than prize-fights, and which the suppression of pugilism will in no way tend to remove—perhaps tend to augment.
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