TRIUMPHANT TUNNEY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19904, 25 September 1926, Page 12

TRIUMPHANT TUNNEY.

Another mighty stuggle swings to He place (if a touch of Kiplingesque parody is permissible) in the dread temple ol pugilistic annals. Philadelphia, tha city which owes its name to the beautiful sentiment of brotherly love, has provided, incongruously enough, the locale of the last sanguinary tussle. The gory details are reported with full fidelity ia this morning’s cable messages. The redoubtable Dempsey has lost the championship to which he clung for many years with quiet success. He strove nobly—so the satirists say—to win the Nobel Prize of Peace; but challengee cannot be continuously evaded, and, though “tigerish” to the end, he baa been forced to yield to the aggression of younger manhood. He will have some consolations in his retirement. Vanquished in the ring, he, nevertheless, by what might seem to be » atmous arrangement, comes out as financial victor, earning in his defeat a thumping fortune, and he is not likely ever to carry the stigma of pauperism. But it may be assumed that little more will be heard of him. He has had hi* amazingly prosperous little day; he will retire now into the obscurity which awaits defeated pugilists and will soon be forgotten. The ascendant star ot Tunney will shine brightly for the tim% until sure destiuy compels the new champion in Ills turn to transfer his laurels. On the ethics of prize-fighting, its worldwide vogue and preposterous popularity, it would he easy to preach a more o» less edifying discourse. But it might be a futile enterprise. Facts have to bo faced; and, deplorable as some feature* of the sport may appear, a strain at stern denunciation or bitter irony would be of little avail. A day will come, ii is devoutly to be hoped, when the lurid love of that blood-thirsty pugnacity, at which the prize-ring provides th* example, will be a thing of th© past, and the “ape and tiger” spirit in the human mind will have died, but that consummation can only be reached by gradual development.