THE LATE PRIZE FIGHT.

Press, Volume XXXI, Issue 4290, 30 April 1879, Page 3

THE LATE PRIZE FIGHT.

["Sydney Morning Herald.] Laws that contend against customs and popular opinion have a hard time of it. Wo recently pointed this out in connection with the liquor traffic. Wo.have now to advert to it again in connection with pugilistic encounters. Prize-fighting is condemned by the law, and properly so, but it ia not yet fully condemned by public opinion. The educated and refined section of society of course loathes the amusement, but there is a thick understratum whose sympathy with it continually breiks out. This portion of society has jet to be educated up to the level of the morality which has inspired the law, and until this elevation ia achieved, this section of society will not be in tbis respect a lawreverenciag and law-abiding part of the peopl?. Two men have recently been engaged in a pri_3 fight, and have been bound OTer to take their trial at Daniliquin. Meanwhile, they are publicly advertised to appear at a metropolitan theatre, and the people of Sydney are invited by their presence and their plaudite to express their admiration of their heroism, Suppose a jury were selected out of tho ranks of these enthusiastic admirers, what would be the chances of a verdict according to law ? We may ask another question, namely, if theatres were under proper Government surveillance would it be allowable to have an exhibition on the stage which directly contravened the purpose of the law, and whioh trained the people to tastes and Bentimeuts which the law was striving to counteract ? The prizefighters bad to dodge tho police in order to indulge in their brutal and bloody pastime— ought they to bo able to defy the police when reproducing in mimic form their violation of the law ? If the law strives to educate the people one way, and tolerated theatrical exhibitions strive to educate it another, which force will prove the stronger ? The vulgarity and inhumanity of fist-fighting ib disguiaed under the seeming phrase of the "noble art of self defence." But the delusion ia palpable. Not one person in ten thousand can defend himself iv this way, and if fists were the only safeguard/aociety would be in a state of utter barbarism. Instead of oheriahing thia mode of defence civilized society has sought to destroy this sort of offence, and the lawa have made every form of personal violence an assault. No reasonable man can doubt that in this reipect the law has been wisely framed, if it haa been, then, tbat law should be sustained, both in the spirit and in the letter, and nothing should be tolerated which tends to aid aud abet tbe crime which the law seeks to punish. If the receivers of stolen goods are deserving of punishment, are not the aiders and abettors of pugilism deserving of punishment also, and are not the promoters and patrors of a theatrical demonstration in favor of prizefighters who are committed for trial aiders and abettors?