THE BOXING CONTESTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12935, 1 October 1902, Page 5

THE BOXING CONTESTS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The account in your yesterday’s issue of the brutal exhibition in the Theatre Royal on Saturday night, when a packed-to-the-door audience witnessed: the degrading spectacle of several couples of human beings fighting, is humiliating in the extreme, and makes yesterday’s paper, at least, unfit to get into the hands of our boys. What an elevating sport this for your' Chief Magistrate to give his patronage to! No, Mr Aback, yon need not hesitate in approaching (significant wordl) the Inspector of Police when the Chief Magistrate of a oity like Christchurch can be found to put his hand to such,a degrading thing as that witnessed at the Theatre Royal last Saturday night. What a comment on the need! Christchurch has former® Torrey-Alexander missions. Surely, while such brutal exhibitions are allowed by the laws of our land l , there will be no lack of candidates for the hell about which Dr Torrey caused such a stir during his stay amongst us. Fancy a boxing contest attended by ladies! Of course they would have to be of the same class as the gentlemen who attended, and one has very gray® doubts about these. Boxing “a gentlemanly sport,” indeed! Are the blows oa face, nose and ears less injurious and less brutalising because given, and received under gentlemanly supervision? To me the whole business is fitly described by another wordl Mir Atack uses, via., “ blackguardly,” and should be put down with a strong hand. I was sorry to see what I presume is a Cornish name associated with the business in a previous paper, and am glad he came off beaten. I hope it will be a lesson to , him and all others to at least respect and not prostitute the county represented in the trio, “Tre, Pol, and! Pen.”—l am, etc., " CORNISHMAN.

(Our correspondent has evidently never witnessed a boxing contest conducted unde* “gentlemanly supervision,” and is probably unaware that thousands of highly respectable men, including many clergymen, differently constituted from himself, find the use ol the gloves a wholesome.

manly exercise and recreation. Mr Atack, as our correspondent must know, did not apply the word - “ blackguardly ’* ■ to anything that occurred at the Theatre during the recent competitions.—E<L 1 “ L.T.”)