SHADOW SPARRING AND MOUTH FIGHTING.

Evening Star, Issue 14001, 6 March 1909, Page 2

SHADOW SPARRING AND MOUTH FIGHTING.

During tho past week the publia have had an opportunity of studying th* pictures that pourtray'with fidelity the famous Burns-Johuson fight that took place in the Sydney Stadium on that most appropriate ' of dates. Boxing Day. The shadowsparring of Burns while in training for tho fateful day was shown upon the screen with great clearness, and the vicious way in which • imaginary heads were punched or wicked upper cuts were given no doubt set many thinking there was a good deal of shadow sparring and knocking imaginary foes on tho head every day elsewhere than in connection with prize fighting. In tho midst of onr vigorous democratic life this must necessarily be so. It was in reference to political life nearly two hundred years ago that Edmund Burke exclaimed: “ What shadows we are, what shadows wo pursue.” To-day wo are fighting social and political bogies. The mouth fighting could be plainly seen pictured in dtm*> show as the earlier rounds of the famous Black v. White fight were in progress, Johnson’s gestures during the movements of his lips leaving no doubt as to the purport of the language used. But the mouth fighting begun at the Stadium continues after th« contest is numbered with things past, and the wordy warfare becomes Tecrudescent wherever the Bnms-Johuson pictures are exhibited. Dunedin has been no exception to the rule. All these objections and protests have, however, to be largely discounted from the fact that those who oppose such exhibitions in their substance oi shadow have, in the vast majority of cases, never seen a prize tight, or even the counterfeit presentment secured by the camera. Such opinions walk on crutches, and the logic of the objectors is consequently very halting. By some the admirers of a prize fight are declared to Ire moved by the same spirit that gloated over gladiatorial combats, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and public executions. One reverend gentleman argued that if a horse were being beaten cruelly in the public streets tho police would interfere, and tho offender would be punished for cruelty to an animal; ergo, Johnson (the pugilistic punisher) should have been haled before the magistrates. It is a strange state of mental obfuscation that cannot differentiate between a captive “butchered to make a Roman holiday” and two trained athletes voluntarily crossing thousands of miles of sea to fight for the world’s championship on an antipodean convincing ground. Some Dunedin residents saw the struggle in the Sydney Stadium, and thousands have witnessed the contest as the films were unwound from the spools night after night; others have road the vivid word-picture painted by Mr Jack Loudon. I/ct doprecators turn to Childe Harold and ask themselves whether that prize fight was anything like this: 1 see before me the gladiator lie; He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his droop’d head sinks gradually low ; And through his side the last- drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one. Like the first of a thunder shower; and now The arena swims around him—he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail’d the wretch who won. In Melbourne the Sunday following Boxing Dav also trod close on the heels of the dreadful seismic disturbances in Italy; consequently the pulpit utterances were influenced by such perplexing problems as to whether God was in the earthquake or tho Devil was in the Stadium. The special Providence theory did not find much favor, for the lesson of the Tower of Siloam is authoritative, and all the mouth fighting was against the poor Devil. Dr Bevan, who used the cnielty-to-animals simile, had the honesty to admit that, according to all accounts, the encounters that had taken place in Sydney showed that prize fighting was carried out on better lines than it was fifty years ago. and that boxing encouraged bravery and gave a sense of self-control. The world'is getting better, quoth tho doctor, for lie had probably been looking up Hazlilfs description of the bloody encounter between Tom Hickman and Bill Noale, the Bristol Bull. There was coarser mouth lighting between the tvvo than Jack Johnson ever used in Sydney, for it is recorded that Hickman, looking at his opponent contemptuously, said : ” Whiff, are you Bill Neale? I’ll knock more blood out of that great carcass of thine this day fortnight than you ever knocked out of a bullock’s.” It was an idle boasl. for in HazliU’s account of the finish of the fight he says of Hickman: His face was like a human skull, a death’s head spouting blood. The eyes were tilled with blood. the nose streamed with blood, the mouth gaped with blood. He was not like an actual man, but. like a prelernatuial spectral appearance, or like one of the figures in Dante’s Inferno. Yet severed more rounds were fought after that. Those, however, were the days before the Queens beery rules were adopted, and fistic encounters were with bare knuckles, not iour-ouuce padded gloves, and when 110 police officer was looking on to stop a fight with Ills authoritative “ Hold ’. Enough!" Everyone who saw the photo graphed picture of the Burns-Johnson tight must have come away convinced that “our black brother” was anything but bloodthirsty in his treatment of'the tailing champion. The apparatus that cannot lie showed that the better mail, after getting the strength of his opponent in the first round, was playing with Burns in much tho same way that a cat treats a captured mouse. As Mr Jack London vividly nuts it: There was never a round that war, Burns’s, and never tt round with oven honors. What did win was bigness, coolness, quickness, cleverness, and vast physical superiority. The fight was hopeless, preposterous, heroic. A dewdrop in Sheol hod more chance than did Burns with the giant Ethiopian. He (Johnson) cuffed and smiled and smiled and cuffed, and in clinches whirled his opponent arcuivd so as to lie able to assume a beatific and angelic facial expression for Ibe benefit of the cinematograph machine. In the good old days, when bareknuckle bruisers were the priests of the P.R. religions, the battles were fought in the green fields of Mcrrie England for purses subscribed by patrons of “the noble art.” and brutal partisans surrounded the ring and expressed their views in a manner that the roughest barracker of to-day would be ashamed of. The Stadium crowds, it is admitted on all hands, were particularly well behaved and fair minded. Championshiii fights like those recently engaged in ..involved an expenditure of over £IO,OOO, including a purse of £7,500. to say nothing of training expenses, which included a masseur. If there were no gate money cricket and football teams would not visit Great Britain or America; even interstate matches would come to an end, and professional exponents of these manly sports could not be engaged for the Ixmcfit of colts. The times have changed in connection with all kinds of sport, and tho character of athletic heroes has kept pace with the times: A few hours after the so-called brutal exhibition in the Stadium, Johnson went to the races and Bums kept up his reputation as a good Catholic by attending mass. The Canadian is in ordinary life said to look, dress, and behave like a gentleman; Johnson boasts of skill ns a swimmer, tennis, baseball, golf, and billiard player. His accomplishments include piano, guitar, fiddle, banjo, and concertina playing. He knows something of aeronautics, is a skilled ehaffour, and has a strong love of archaeology. No wonder that oven the opponents of the Prize Ring arc fain to admit that the sport has improved since the early days of the. “fancy.” If the championship fights and the vivid representations of them that have been on exhibition of late increase the cultivation of boxing amongst our youths, the stimulus ought to lie in the direction of manly self-reliance and desirable physical development. A” gymnasia should certainly be provided with punching balls, and many persons favor mziiig being taught to our youth.