BOXING AND THE LAW.
THE decision of the stipendiary magistrate at Birmingham on Monday to prevent the proposed boxing contest between 0 wen Moran, of Worcester, and Jim Driscoll, of Cardiff, for a large stake and the featherweight championship of the world makes its desirable that the law on professional boxing contests should be defined more clearly. We hope that the stipendiary may find it possible for this reason to state a case. He came to the conclusion that the proposed contest would be a prize fight and that it was his duty to intervene to prevent a breach of the peace. We are far from assuming that he was wrong in the circumstances, yet we cannot disavow a logical sympathy with the argument of the defence that if the proposed contest, which was to have been conducted une.tr National Sporting Club rules, was held to be illegal there would be no professional boxing for stakes which could be considered legal. The stipendiary, being convinced by the evidence that the object of each contestant would be to deliver a " knock-out blow," failed to see that the contest would differ from a "prize fight," and banned it as such. The fact that Lord Lonsdale (who has often delivered and received a knock-out blow himself) gave evidence for the defence, although he was opposed to the recent projected contest between Jack Johnson and Bombardier Wells, no doubt leaves anyone a little be- wildered who tries to get at the real law of the matter. We imagine that Lord Lonsdale disliked the Johnson-Wells fight (most rightly as we think) because it would have been, so far as expert judgment could tell, a contest between men who were in no sense fairly matched. It would have been a mere money- making, sensation-mongering business, which, moreover, would have stirred up a racial enmity between black and white stic'a as disgusted the world after the Johnson-Jeffries fight in America. But, strongly as we agree with that view on grounds of public interest and convenience, it still leaves U3 very doubtful about the right interpretation of the law. It cannot be lawfully right that men should be prevented from
taking part in professional boxing contests for money merely because they are celebrated, or because they are of this or that colour, while the Southwark Lunger, the Bermondsey Chick, the Putney Puncher (or whatever may be the names of those who seek to remedy obscurity or mediocrity by a menacing nomenclature), are free to knock one another out nearly all the year round in the minor boxing saloons of the poorer parts of London.
When prize-fighting was pilloried as a breach of the peace after the famous fight between Sayers and Heenan in 1860 the next step was for the Lord Queensberry of the day to invent rules which should save boxing from illegality and disrepute. Since 1867 all professional contests for money have been conducted under Queensberry rules unless they have been con- ducted under the rules of the National Sporting Club, which are supposed to afford more safeguards than the Queensberry rules. The question seems to be whether the time has come to acknowledge that the division of the old prolonged agony into short rounds, between which the combatants rest, and the provision of gloves are insufficient to temper brutality. Per- haps such tricks as "breaking the gloves" have been allowed too often to defeat the efficacy of rules ; perhaps there is too much human error in the standards of referees ; and it may be that light gloves by saving the knuckles permit a man to go on punching viciously long after the period when pulpy hands in the old bare-fist days would have ceased to deliver a blow bard enough to frighten a schoolboy. If these things be so then the law might take another departure and state clearly under what conditions boxing contests for money will be allowed in the future. What we are concerned with principally is the danger of boxing, in which we would include professional boxing, being condemned to disrepute. There is no need on earth why it should be. If brutality and trickery be reasonably provided against we see no objection to men hitting one another as long as they care to endure the blows of their own free will. We do not call free- dom of exchange in physical pain willingly entered into brutality. A trained boxer probably does not suffer more than a runner or an oarsman in a long and hard race. As for the knock-out blow which produces temporary paralysis by striking the solar plexus, or the region of the kidneys or liver, or the region over the heart, or the point of the chin (the favourite spot for producing a passing concussion of the brain) it is to be understood that this is common enough in amateur as well as in professional boxing. We cannot remember whether a knock-out blow has been delivered in the public school contests, but it has certainly ended some of those between Oxford and Cambridge. It ought to be made clear whether a knock-out is really a breach of the peace. If it is it is perhaps possible to provide against it, or to prevent it from becoming the be-all and end-all by penalizing it.
Boxing appeals to the British mind in spite of the pain and very moderate danger which may be incidental to it. There must be some reason, and we think it no ignoble reason, why the narratives of fights with fists stick in the memory of all those who read them in literature. Why is the fight with Slogger Williams the best known incident in " Tom Brown's Schooldays " ? Who forgets the fight with the Flaming Tininan in " Lavengro " ? Meredith has a prize fight in " Sandra Belloni "; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in " Rodney Stone." Best of all there is Hazlitt's inimitable essay, " The Fight," in which the antagonists stand out like portraits by Raeburn or Sir Joshua. What schoolboy does not cheer up over his Homer or Virgil when feats with spears give place to rounds with the fists ? Take the games at the funeral of Anchises, for example. The writer can vouch for the delight with which he welcomed the fight between Dares and Entellus, having little expected such an entertainment on such an occasion. Aged and stiff-jointed Entellus, in taking on the gigantic boaster, certainly merited the sympathy which always goes out to " the little 'un." Everything was as fair as fair could be except the age of Entellus, and that could not be helped if a gallant victory was to be snatched in the face of odds. Even the blood-stained cesti of Eutellus when produced before the fight were ruled out as being too terribly significant. Why should the boaster be frightened into defeat ? Let them fight with equally weighted cesti on their hands, said .Eneas, the Eugene Corgi of the occasion. Talk of broken gloves ! The cesti must have been nearly as heavy as dumbells. The rivals can hardly have hit straight from the
shoulder with such things ; the fighting must have been rather of the windmill order. Then Entellus almost knocked himself out by a terrific blow which was delivered on the circuma ambient air. We fear that when he fell the spectators rushed in to pick him up. That was legal in those days. Finally, quite truthfully to life, the old fellow was so stung by his misfortune that he redoubled his fury, and would undoubtedly have laid out Dares had not .news decided the match "on points."
The writer has never been knocked out and does not know whether it is really as agreeable as being put to sleep by the cooing of doves, as some boxers would have us believe. But he does know the discipline of tolerably bard boxing, and has seen in the habits and manners of others the splendid influence of the patience and self-control which come from boxing. What boxer does not know the anger which flashes up at the first hard, stinging blow on the face, and what boxer of any experience has not learned that if be gives way to anger be will find it a bad guide and master? Fight angrily instead of with cool watchfulness and you are lost. The man who boxes regularly must lead a regular life or he cannot last; his brain must be quick and his vision clear or he cannot hope to have the judgment for slipping or ducking, or, above all, for bending back and letting the adversary's blow exhaust itself in the vacant air an inch in front of his nose. If he is an untrained man his legs will soon tremble and fail under the incessant foot-work. No wonder half the clergy in poor districts regard boxing as their best ally. Loafers, drinkers, and degenerates do not go in for it. We have seen professional boxers who made their living in the ring provide an evening's sport free for a London mission. The missioner was their friend and collected money at the door. They had come from all quarters of London to spill a little blood and, if necessary, to be knocked out for the good of the cause—or, if not very directly or consciously for the cause, at least to oblige a friend. It was a very instructive spectacle. If the law should be interpreted quite logically and strictly in accordance with the Birmingham decision, those good fellows might all be arrested for breaking the peace. This would be foolish and unnecessary while compromise is still untried. More foolish still would it be if the law, by a side- wind, blew discredit on boxing as a science and pastime which is fit for Christians and gentlemen.
Boxing may sometimes be degraded by the blackguard and the bully, but for all that it is no paradox but the simple truth to say that it is the best school for kindliness, good temper, good-heartedness, and good manners in the whole athletic curriculum.
Previous page
