Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1919. BOXING REVIVAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XL, Issue 9897, 30 August 1919, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1919. BOXING REVIVAL.

. The boxing revival in Ashburton is to be welcomed for various reasons, especially if the keynote struck at the outset by the promoters can be maintained. Whatever opinions may be held about boxing,-as a profession (incidentally, a lot of obvious nonsense is published about professional pugilism), there need be

no controversy among fairminded people as to the advantages of encouraging boxing as a sport, particularly in small towns and rural districts. Social »reformers should give it their aid, because amateur boxing develops healthy minds as well as healthy bodies, and all class distinctions are lost in the ring. Preachers could base effective sermons on the analogies between a boxing 1 match and the daily round, for parabolical touches are many. Women should welcome the desire among their men folk to know how to use their fists properly, k>r such knowledge is an insurance of adequate protection to the weaker sex, if molested by criminals or cads. The boxers themselves benefit, because if success is to be achieved much self-discipline is necessary and valuable psychological, as well as physical developments are attained. Boxing and similar pursuits help to minimise the growth of that frame of mind peculiar to those who profess and call themselves "pacifists' : and "conscientious objec- i tors"' in times of stress, such as the nation has recently passed through, ' and are antidotes to the facilities for luxurious ease increasingly numerous in prosperous countries, and which ease, as history instructs, is the parent of degeneracy and racial decay. On general grounds, therefore, it is a clear duty to support amateur boxing, and on grounds special to the Ashburton district, there are further claims. Virile young men require some strenuous pastimes in evening hours, or when' outdoor sports are impracticable, and "if the locality in which they live "does not meet this natural 'want, they become discontented and move elsewhere, or fall easier victims to undesirable pursuits. Small towns and rural districts would cure much of tho now customary "restlessness among their young men residents, if boxing and athletics were systematically encouraged by those elders who deplore the exodus of youth to the large cities. Tournaments,, such as was held on Thursday evening by the Ashburton Sports Club, well organised . and well conducted, should'not be regarded as occasions where young athletes are battered to make an onlooker's holiday, but as opportunities to bring out much of what is good in man. physical and moral. JSTohody would" foolishly assert that skill in fistic nil's necessarily implies saintship, but those who have had any experience of boxing, realise that unless a young man "plays- the game" outside the ring, lie will have sorry experiences when he gets between the ropes.