Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1923. THE NOBLE ART.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIV, Issue 9875, 24 July 1923, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1923. THE NOBLE ART.

The approach, of the boxing championship contests to be decided in Ashburton this week, brings into current topics the question of physical fitness and what that means in present-day life. One of the outstanding features of existence as we see it and feel it in 1923, is the pauseless haste, the mental overreach, the frenzied heed to all that feathers our nests with currency and beggars our bodies. How many of us to-day take exercise? We have not time or the inclination. Money has to be harvested in. It is the one sure essential; and one must live. And as it is one of Nature’s laws that the unused organ will become extinct, our limbs, taking us as a community en masse, must in a few generations be growing steadily smaller. We motor instead of walking; we live as near to the shop or office as possible in order to eliminate the time-consuming promenade; we tot up our accounts after tea so'that we may sell goods unmolested all day to-morrow; we even put our boots outside the bedroom door rather than endure the exercise of cleaning them; and we would not be seen running along the street on any account. By some extraordinary unwritten decree such violence is deemed unseemly. It is true that there are some people oldfashioned enough to play] golf or dig gardens on Sundays, or play football and croquet or tennis on Saturdays; but they are not many. The real up-to-date man or woman has put a veto upon common muscular exercise and is speeding on to his extinction. A strange thing about our mentality in this year 1923 is that when by chance we resolve to take part in healthy sports, we usually do so by looking on, and not playing. To how many of the nations this picture applies it is difficult to say. But it is easy to conjecture that if a crisis should ever arise among the nations where agility and brute force j count, the nations which are to- j day the foremost in the extermination of muscular effort will be at a fatal disadvantage. What seems to be badly needed is a form of exercise close handy after tea —something you can reach off the mantelpiece as you reach your favourite pipe—something you can enjoy in company inexpensively, and something that brings into vigorous play every function, muscular, mental, intellectual, and ; extends alike sinews, heart, and lung power. Boxing alone does all that. Everyone knows that boxing calls on each muscle from jneck sinew to instep. It quickens the eye, toughens the heart, j hardens the pluck, and makes jthe big knocks of life seem trifles. That boxing should sometimes damage the physiognomy is not inevitable: as a home occupation its use is for developj ing agility rather than sledgehammer blows. It is one of the sports of gentlemen. That men who box professionally for heavy stakes give rise sometimes to disgusting scenes of human passion is no more condemnatory to boxing than are the tragedies of Monte Carlo to the harmless drawing-room card game. Apart from the public exhibitions there are probably few pastimes productive of so little ill result as boxing and at the same time so accessible in the leisure hours of evening, and so healthful and

entertaining. No doubt tbe sparring displays to be witnessed in Ashburton this week will be more strenuous than the picture we have here painted for amateurs at home, for there will be championships at stake. Something showy seems necessary to popularise any sport, and at these performances, where exchampions are to clash, one may with confidence look forward to seeing the art of the game revealed in its most instructive guise. The many visitors whom the distinguished event will bring into (Ashburton may be assured that our town values this sport at a high level, and recognises the importance of preserving at any sacrifice a clean spirit. We trust they will carry away with them a good opinion of the habit of fairplay and courtesy which governs the officials and spectators of Ashburton.