PRIZE FIGHTING AND BOXING.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 214, 6 September 1912, Page 2

PRIZE FIGHTING AND BOXING.

A JUDGE'S DlSmi CIIOH. KENNETH MOORE FIJTED £5. ~ (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) 'A HAMILTON, this day. At the Supreme Court to-day Kenneth Moore pleaded guilty to a charge of taking part in a prize fight in Taupiri. His Honor said he agreed with the 'verdict of the jury in the manslaughter : case, as there was reasonable doubt how the injury which caused death was inflicted. Prize fights were definitely illegal in New Zealand, also in England, on the grounds that they were injurious to the public generally. It was against the public interest that the lives of combatants should be in danger. In addition such fights were calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. They were in a sense disorderly exhibitions. He did not ' wish to be misunderstood, as boxing or sparring matches with gloves were' not ■necessarily illegal—it depended on cir- ■' cumstances, and they knew many recent ; exhibitions with gloves were prize fighta in tho essential sense of the term- Fights where gloves were used might be, and very often were, prize fights, but where i the elements of the prize fight di dnot obtain, exhibitions of boxing were not necessarily breaches of the law ' unless breaches of the peace were or might be provoked. This was a prize fight within the meaning of the law—it -was an illegal act if two parties met and placed themselves in a position to inflict serious injury the one on tlie other. Prisoner wag not the aggressor, but the offence was aggravated by the time and day the fight took place (Sunday). Accused was not responsible for what happened on Saturday night. He was fined £5 and ordered to keep i the peace for 12 months, in his own recognisances of £50 and one surety of £50.