KNUCKLES AND GLOVES.*
THERE was a drawing of Leech's in Punch for April 8th, 1860, to which Thackeray had written these words—or perhaps it was the other way round.
" SERIOUS GOVERNOR : I am surprised, Charles, that you can take an interest in these repulsive details. How many rounds (I believe you term them) do you say these ruffians fought ? Urn, dis- graceful ! The Legislature ought to interfere ; and it appears that
this Benicia Man did not gain the—hem—best of it ? take the paper when you have done with it, Charles.' "
Serious governors can carry Mr. Lynch's book to the secrecy of their studies and read very good "repulsive details," not only of the Sayers-Heenan fight, but of some thirty other historic battles, from Broughton and Slack to Carpentier and Cook. And they can do that without the painful process of
raising themselves in the eyes of Charles—unless, of course, they borrow Charles's copy. But the first appeal of Knuckles and Gloves is to the honest man, who dearly loves a fight and is not ashamed of it.
Mr. Lynch has not superseded Boxiana or Pugilistica. His book is too small and gentlemanlike to compete with those heavies. He has written, suitably to this age, under the Queensberry rules. Pierce Egan wrote with the bare fist, but Mr. Lynch's pen has been held in an eight-ounce glove. Per- haps he believed the scathing words that Thackeray put into the mouth of his old prizefighter, who relates the story of the Sayers-Heenan fight to his great-grandchildren in 1920 :— " What boots to use the lingo When you have not the thing ? "
But we have our lingo still, as well as the thing ; the very picturesque and vivid lingo that may be heard any week at the Ring, Blackfrairs, or in whatever place boxers and fans arc gathered together. Claret still means, as it did to John Hamilton Reynolds, " the liquor vulgarly called blood."
Mr. Lynch has no doubt been wise to write as he has done. There are few readers to-day with a fancy for literary knuckles, but there are a great many who will enjoy prize fights politely told. Dr. Johnson in the days of pugilism wrote about • Anuckla and Glows, By Bohun Lynch. Collins. 115s. net.] fighting politely, and he is a good exemplar. Did he not have a turn-up with Davies, the bookseller of Covent Garden, and with the brewer's servant in Fleet Street ? There are many good fights told in literature, and Mr. Lynch has added to them. He has given us a rich gallery of fighters— Broughton, Humphries, Cribb, Sayers, Carpentier, Beckett, Wilde, and fifty other " men of renown."
He might, though it was out of his line, have added the legend of the mill between Prince Charles and little Oliver Cromwell, or the famous scrap, when Pietro Torrigiano landed Michelangelo " un grande punzione dcl naso." Those of us to whom the classics of pugilistic literature are old and constant friends can never accept Mr. Lynch's book as a champion. Not .even as a lightweight, because that champion- ship is held by a small quarto volume called A Treatise on the Useful Art of Self-Defence ; or, Characters of the Masters, by Captain Godfrey. But Mr. Lynch's is none the less a very good book and full of the spirit of the amateur ring, which is the cleanest spirit in boxing. That is as it should be ; Mr. Lynch is a very good amateur Pug.
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