PUGILISM AND BRUTALITY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 80, 15 October 1928, Page 8

PUGILISM AND BRUTALITY

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Your publication Jast J'Viday of an article entitled "Vox Dei," written for the Sydney "Jieraid" by Thomas (Jourtenay, and dealing with the Tunney-Heeney prize iight, was timeiy and gratifying.: The pity is that we have had to wait tor an Australian journal to tell us wliat should have been proclaimed long ago by every selfrespecting paper in New Zealand. _. We have chosen to applaud and glorify a performance that has made appeal to the most depraved instincts in human nature, and hardly a voice has been raised in protest. Now we have been told the plain truth of the matter (though the facts were ail along patent and indisputable), and it will be interesting to see what response the official supporters of pugilism in-this country make to the challenge. For a challenge it undoubtedly is, and they hardiy dare ignore it. . „ '..-,'■ .. It is extraordinary that so many otherwise apparently reputable men should ally themselves with a so-called "sport" that m.all its essentials recalls the days when men were butchered to make a Ror an holiday. Sureiy we have reached a pu»nt iii history when such a-barbarous business should be effectually outlawed.-; .:. ■„ There was a strange irony in the. fact of one or the grandest achievements of modern science being demonstrated, as it was some weeks ago, in association with one of the most degrading spectacles known to mankind. Truly we live in a wonderful age, but if the elimination of the ape aud the tiger is to be accounted an essential of human progress we have a long way.to travel yet. "•■■■ Mr. Courtenay sees, a redeeming circumstanco in .the # f act that the, promoters of the revolting'show lost money over it. So do I. And I see another, from New Zealand's point'of view, in the fact that Heeney was the loser. He is probably a more estimable man, though a poorer- one, for having failed in an unworthy enterprise, and New-Zealand is at least spared—for the moment—the stigma of leading the world in organised brutality.—l ■ am, etc.,'■ '—'■ - " J.W-B. 12th October. :,