Ring and Heenan have been hauled up before the magistrates
.of Mark Cross, Kent, for a breach of the peace. The prosecutor was also a magistrate, Mr. George Campion Courthope, who, how- -ever, himself went to the fight, but did not call on the principals to desist. The magistrates bound over the defendants, not because 44 that in what they did there was anything particularly reprehen- sible, but because persons cannot commit illegal acts with im- punity." They hadn't done anything wrong, so they were bound ever not to do it again. All this while, Mr. Justice Pigott has laid it down as law that for one prizefighter to kill another in open tattle is by law "wilful murder." Consequently, between the judge and the magistracy the law must be held to be this: Prize- fighting is a harmless amusement, only if one gladiator dies the ether ought to be hung. These very same magistrates would put down bull-baiting with all the power of the law.
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