THE "GLOVE" FIGHT AT THE THEATRE ROYAL.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 334, 2 May 1885, Page 14

THE "GLOVE" FIGHT AT THE THEATRE ROYAL.

. I have received the following letter with reference to what took place at the Theatre Boyal on Saturday evening last: — " Sir, — Will you kindly allow me to expkin a few

of the facts that took place at the Theatre .Royal in the boxing contest between B. Donovan and "W. Murphy on Saturday night. The reporter for the Auckland Evening Star has thought proper to bring my name very prominently forward, and I cannot understand his reason for doing so, unless he has some personal grudge against me. Firstly, he describes the contest as a disgusting exhibition, and that the men wore small chamois leather gloves without padding', and that in the fifth round Murphy's face was pounded out of all human semblance. I beg to contradict the above statements and declare them false. The contest was a veiy fair one, and conducted in the fairest manner possible; and I may say, from experience, it was a good exhibition of British pluck, fair play, and endurance. Certainly there were some scratches and the skin broken on the combatants' faces ; and when the Star reporter beheld a little 'claret' he got scared so much that he could not see plainly what was going on. I admit that I was asked to be the referee, and, no doubt, so were many others also 'to hold that honourable position, 1 as the Star sarcastically remarks ; and I must say the position is an honourable one, if honour is to be judged by keeping men strictly to the rules of fair play. It is by exhibitions of this kind that men are taught the lessons of fair play. It inspires confidence and contempt of personal suffering, the great attributes of the British character ; there can, in fact, be no better preparation for our Army and Navy. It teaches a man to look his adversary in the face while fighting; to sustain the fiercest attack without flinching ; to watch and parry an intended blow ; to return with quickness, and to follow it up with resolution and effect. It habituates him to sustain his courage under bodily suffering, and when the conflict has ceased to treat his enemy with humanity. The feeling of superiority which the practice of boxing gives an Englishman over a foreigner in a private quarrel is carried into, the field of battle, for the boxer cannot think of turning his tack on a foe whom he always deemed his inferior in combat. Individuals, as well as states, must have their disputes, their quarrels, and then their battles. This there is no denying. The sad but natural, the regretable but inevitable, condition and tenure on which human life, nay, all animal existence, is held. There must, then, be some mode through which the passions, when aroused, from whatever cause — ' ambition, love, or greed and thirst for gold' — may be assuaged, subdued, or extinguished; when the necessity for an appeal to the ultima ratio of conflict is unavoidable, and surely in this extremity the fists — the symbol of personal courage, of prompt readiness for defence and attack — are the most harmless, the ever-present, and the least fatal weapons. I will leave the pistol to your high-born countrymen of the upper ten thousand, if it so please them ; the fatal , knife to the fireeating Gaul ; the back-handed stiletto to the stabbing Italian ; the sharp, triangular rapier or the dagger to the saturnine Spaniard; the slaughterous schlager to the beerbemused hurschen of dreamy vaterland ; the gash-inflicting knife to the Dutch boor or seamen's snicker-snee ; the death-dealing bowie, or Kansas tooth-pick, and murderous six-shooter to the universal Yankee nation ; the waved krcese to the muck-running Malay; each tawny savage to his sharp tomahawk, his poisoned arrow, or his barbed assagai. And then I would ask the scribblers of the anti-pugilistic press which of these they are prepared to champion against the fist of the British boxer — a weapon of defence which, as exemplified in the practice laid down in the latest code of ring law, is the perfection of the jDractice of cool courage, self -reticent combat, restraint, skill, and endurance that can illustrate and adorn the character of an unsophisticated and true Englishman in the supreme moment of conquest or defeat. It has frequently being urged by magistrates, and even ermined judges of quasi liberal sentiments, that pugilism, as a national practice and an occasional or fortuitous occurence, may be winked at by the authorities, or punished at discretion, as occasion may seem to require. It is to boxing schools and regulated combats we owe that noble system of fistic and of fair play which distinguishes and elevates our common people, and which stern, impartial, unprejudiced, and logical minds must hail and foster as one of the proud attributes of our national character. I do not in the least undervalue peaceful pursuits, which constitute and uphold the blessings of peaceful life. Yet a nation with no idea or principle beyond commerce would be unworthy ; nay, would be unfit for national existence, much more for national power and progress. Subjection, conquest, and hence serfdom and poverty, must be its fate in the presence of strong, rapacious, and encroaching neighbours. A portion, then, of a nation should be set apart, whose vocation it will be to secure and defend the lives, liberties, and pi'operties of the whole. Hence the honourable calling of the soldier and the sailor ; and hence, to fit the people for these, and to prevent the too general indulgence of effeminacy, dread of enterprise, and the contagious spread of an enervating and fanatical peace-at-any-price quietism, it is wise to encourage the manly and athletic sports and contests, which invigorate the frame, brace the nerves, inspire contempt of personal suffering, and enable man to defend his rights as well as to enjoy them. Pugilistic exhibitions are falsely said to harden the heart, to induce ferocity of

character; and ir is also stated that they are generally attended by the dregs p£ society. The last aspersion, for reasons that He on the surface, has the most truth in it ; but pugilism includes no thing essentially vicious, nothing in itself prompting toexcess or debauchery. On the contrary, itasks temperance, exercise, and self-denial.. I am, &c, £r.. Geo. Bllchek..