THE “NOBLE ART.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6315, 16 September 1907, Page 9

THE “NOBLE ART.”

TLe old time Greeks and Romans, when they were tiled .of slaying .one anucaer with the short sword as a festal sport - for the edincution of their i contemporaries, resorted to boxing. JMei-| ther the one nor the other wore six ounce or eight ounce gloves, and the Marquis of Queeiiboerry was not. The; ancients in lieu of gloves a heavy iron, hand piece, with perhaps t a .spike ion the knuckles, or, as a gentle sub--j stitute, a line of knobs, one for each , | knuckle. . The‘ relatives of one of the | contestants in these breezy sports were | ! always prepared to become a funeral party, .boxing . is therefore extremely ancient, and really became popular as a new method of doing what was ordinarily done with a club, a sword, or. a bat- . tleaxe. Man's nature has not greatly changed In the interval of time that has elapsed between the sports in tne an- . cieut amphitheatres and the sports in | the Wellington Opera mouse last week. | The diflerence nowadays is that-only the; ‘burglar uses the knuckle-duster of the; ! ancients, public opinion seeming bo have; • changed to the extent of not even permit- ' ting the bare knuckle to be used. It J i wa«j not so very long ago when prize-1 fighters fought almost to the death. \ Some gieyoeards may even remember' the bayers-beenan fight, which lack'd until the faces of bovh weie pulp and one fought on grimly with a broken ' tfrin. ■ Tne police will not permit broken arms nowadays, although the average male crowd desire all the broken limns, they cun get for their money. It was not* the excellence of the art of boxing that appealed to the crowd that recently filled the Opera House. It was the anj scientific heavy punching that rau«»-l | them to great enthusiasm, A crowd 1 simmer with a gentle joy at ittack, j parry, duck, d- w vtor and lungs.

but they still burst into a flame of ♦inbounded joy where two men of powerful physique simply meet with the idea ol us quickly as possible disabling each other. There is absolutely no es*ent : ©> dinerence in tne leeliug of a laoi-un crowd and the feelings, of the anc.cn? crowd—but there are the police iu botween, who, however they may love the fistic art, and an exposition of it, have to bo guided by tnat public -pinion which keeps some people outside boxing booths and bull fighting arenas and ■cockpits. Boxing iu it* modern tV’tu is British. Most British public-school hoys box and are told that the art pres them self-control, self-respect, and should make them chivalrous. A knowledge of boxing on the part of an opponent of any.on© of the "sloggers" in the recent amateur champion tourney, would have reduced mere brute force to helplessness, ami herein lies the utility of the art to the man who is going to use it as a defensive means, it is a little questionable whether mere blind attack, which is spectacularly pleasing to men generally, is the kind of thing that should enter into a tournament, and also is it questionable whether a man who shows no glimmer ,o£ bpxing capability fairly wins a championship by hitf ability to stand hard thumping and tc return tho same with compound inter est.