But, unfortunately, the beginnings of prize-fighting, or boxing for money with bare fists, were more romantic than its subsequent career, for it lived on brutality4 and it died of boredom6. The house near Covent Garden has become the National Sporting Club. Knuckles7 have been replaced by gloves. To-day we see Carpentier knock his man out scientifically in less than a single round, instead of watching Tom Sayers, with one arm, fighting the Benicia Boy, and only getting a draw after two hours and twenty minutes. Mr. Bohun Lynch’s description of the battle is one of the best I have ever read, and he gives full credit to each man for the fine spirit shown throughout an encounter in which neither asked for mercy and neither expected any.
On the afternoon of June 16, 1904, there was sold in King viii Street, Covent Garden, the belt presented to J. C. Heenan (who was called the Benicia Boy from the San Francisco workshops, where he was employed) after the great fight was over. It was a duplicate of the championship belt, and it bore the same title as that presented at the same time to Sayers: “Champion of England.” The price it fetched in 1904 was, I fear, a true reflection of the interest now taken in its original owner and his pugilistic surroundings; and it is difficult to recall the celebrity8 of both from those past years when Tom Sayers seemed to share with the Duke of Wellington the proud title of Britain’s greatest hero. But it is not really so astonishing when we remember that the plucky9 little Hoxton bricklayer stood to the youth of his era as the gamest representative of almost the only form of sport the larger public knew or cared about. In days when golf, lawn-tennis, cricket, football, and the rest not only multiply our sporting stars almost indefinitely, but attract crowds numbered by scores of thousands to applaud them, we do not seem to pitch upon the boxer10 as our especially typical representative of national sporting skill. There may be other reasons for that, too. English boxers11 seem to have only retained their characteristic style long enough to hand it on to others; they then proceeded to forget it. When Jem Mace12 left off boxing in England he went to Australia, and in Sydney he taught Larry Foley, who in turn educated Peter Jackson, Fitzsimmons, Hall, Creedon, and Young Griffo. The first two handed on the lighted torch to the United States. The result was soon obvious. When the Americans came over they beat us at all weights from Peter Jackson downwards13, and they beat us because they had learnt from us what one of the best exponents14 of the art has called “velocity and power of hitting combined with quickness and ease of movement on the feet”; I should like to add to that, “the straight left,” or as it is more classically known, “Long Melford.”
No doubt the best of the old fighters now and then produced a fine and manly example of human fortitude15 and skill. “If I were absolute king,” wrote Thackeray in a famous Roundabout Paper after the Sayers and Heenan fight, “I would send Tom ix Sayers to the mill for a month and make him Sir Thomas on coming out of Clerkenwell.” I am tempted16 in this connection to reproduce what must be one of the few letters Tom Sayers ever wrote. It was caused by a public discussion after his famous fight, which is little short of amazing when we look back at it. The newspapers were filled with frenzied17 denunciations, Parliament angrily discussed the question, Palmerston quoted, with every sign of satisfaction, a French journalist who saw in the contest “a type of the national character for indomitable perseverance18 in determined19 effort,” and then (cannot you see his smiling eyes above the semi-serious mouth?) proceeded to draw a contrast between pugilism and ballooning, very much to the disadvantage of the latter. A correspondent wrote to the Press inquiring indignantly whether it were true that the Duke of Beaufort, the Earl of Eglinton, and the Bishop20 of Oxford21 had attended “this most disgraceful exhibition.” Tom Sayers, roused to unwonted penmanship, retorted in the Daily Telegraph as follows:—“In answer to your correspondent, I beg to state that neither bishop nor peer was present at the late encounter. It is from a pure sense of justice that I write you this. I scarcely think it reasonable that such repeated onslaughts should be made on me and my friend, Heenan. Trusting you will insert this in your widely-circulated and well-regulated journal, allow me to remain, yours faithfully, Thomas Sayers, Cambrian Stores, Castle Street, Leicester Square, April 21, 1860.” The Stock Exchange had given him a purse of a hundred guineas that afternoon, so you need scarcely wonder at the urbanity of his language. In the House of Commons, meanwhile, the Home Secretary had been calling forth22 cheerful expressions of hilarity23 by reminding those members who had witnessed the battle that they might be indicted24 for misdemeanour, though he was pleased to add that fighting with fists was in his opinion better than the use of the bowie-knife, the stiletto, or the shillelagh.
I can remember Mr. Lynch’s boxing for his University, and the severe discomfort25 he occasioned his Cambridge adversary26; and when I recall the many excellent books (on different subjects) x which he has previously27 given us, I see in him an author who has not only the knowledge but the skill to produce that requisite28 blend of literature and experience which can alone commend the subject of his volume to the English-speaking public. I wish I could claim as much myself. But I suffered from the educational advantage of having a younger brother who knocked me down (and often “out”) with the greatest kindliness29 and persistence30 whenever we put on the gloves together; and being overmuch puffed31 up with pride at finding I could stand so much of it, I rashly took on a guardsman so considerably32 my superior that after three rounds I was never allowed to box again, and had to quench33 my thirst for personal combat in ensuing years with foil and duelling-sword. My brother died suddenly of a fever when he was in training under Bat Mullens for the Amateur Championship, and only twenty-one. He was six feet three and thirteen stone stripped, and I never saw an amateur I thought his better until Hopley came into the ring for Cambridge; and no one ever knew how good Hopley was, for no one ever stood in the ring with him for more than two minutes, and he retired34, like St. Simon (I mean, of course, the Duke of Portland’s thoroughbred) as undefeated as he was unextended.
Another very good fight in Mr. Lynch’s book (and I have never read a better analysis of the technical “knock-out” than the one he gives on page 126) is that between Peter Jackson and Frank Slavin. I saw it, so I can correct a slight verbal error (foreseen in his own footnote) in Mr. Lynch’s pages. Mr. Angle (I have his letter before me) did not say “Fight on” at that dreadful moment when the packed house could scarcely breathe; when Slavin was tottering35 blindly to and fro, refusing to give in; when Peter looked out at us appealingly, with the native chivalry36 that shone through his black skin, and evidently hated to continue. The referee’s quiet syllables37, “Box on,” sounded like a minute-gun at sea, and in a few moments it was all over. When Slavin was brought round in his dressing-room, and told he had been knocked out, he muttered, “They’ll never believe that in Melbourne.” xi
There must have been something about the old prize-ring which we have lost to-day, or it would never have inspired such good literature or attracted such brilliant men in its support. Byron’s screen in Mr. John Murray’s drawing-room is far from the only testimony38 to that dazzling poet’s love of fighting. Hazlitt was almost equally attracted. Perhaps the most grisly passage even in the pages of De Quincy is that episode in the first part of “Murder as One of the Fine Arts,” where the fight between the amateur and the baker39 of Mannheim (with its result) is vividly40 described. The best pages of Borrow, too, gain their best inspiration from the same source. I often seem to recall that pair of dark eyes flashing in a fair face shaded by hair that was prematurely41 touched with grey; lips full and mobile, as quick with Castilian phrases to a Spanish landlord as with Romany to Jasper Petulengro, or with English to the fruit-woman on London Bridge; the queer, fascinating, mystical, honest mixture of a man, with something of the Wandering Jew, a good deal of Don Quixote, a touch of Melmoth, a sound flavouring of Cribb and Belcher, who was George Borrow. Under his magic guidance you step into the air which fanned the elf-locks of the Flaming Tinman. He loved the heroes of the Ring like brothers. “He strikes his foe42 on the forehead, and the report of the blow is like the sound of a hammer against a rock.” The sentence stands unmatched in all the annals of pugilism. The battle of his father with Big Ben Brain in Hyde Park was an abiding43 memory to him; and, apart from the famous encounter in the Dingle, the son did almost as well; and all his life nothing moved him to such instant eloquence44 as boxing, except horses.
Mr. Lynch, with all his knowledge of the art, and all his sympathy with the best qualities in the men whose combats he portrays45, cannot conceal46 from us that on the whole the old prize-ring was brutal5 and the modern “pugilistic contest” between professionals has very little that is attractive. Yet he is right both to put them on record and to tell the truth about them without fear or favour. For at the very heart of their foundations is an ineradicable and a noble instinct of the human race. Even a xii Dempsey, earning several thousand pounds a minute, may be dimly conscious that he is building better than he knows. Professionals in any game who attain47 a height of skill which gives them a practically unlimited48 market for what they have to sell, can scarcely be blamed by stockbrokers49 who gamble on a falling market, or by profiteers who battened on the war. Even the modern professional boxer cannot do permanent harm to the true atmosphere of the great game in which he shines briefly50 like a passing meteor. It is pages like these from Mr. Lynch that should inspire the professional to give us his best and leave aside the worst in what is, after all, only an epitome51 of life, a show in which the blows are seen instead of hidden, in which rewards or losses are known to all the world instead of silently concealed52. There is a spirit in Boxing which nothing can destroy, and while we cherish it among amateurs, the professional will never be able to defile53 it.
Mr. E. B. Michell, an old pupil of my father’s, and the only boxer who ever held three of the amateur championships at different weights, is still with us; and I should still do my best to prevent any friend from wantonly attacking him. Like all real fighters, he has always been the kindliest of men, the most difficult to provoke to extremes. But any one who has managed to extract from his diffidence those few occasions when he had to use his fists, because no other course was possible, will realise that boxing is not merely a splendid form of recreation, but one of the finest systems of self-defence ever developed by persistent54 effort.
Julian Grenfell’s famous poem, “Into Battle,” was written in the Trenches55 the day after he had fought the champion of his division in France; and there were few who read it who did not recall that previous victory of his over Tye, the fireman, which will never be forgotten in Johannesburg. Three times he was laid on his back. In the third round he knocked the fireman out, “and he never moved for twenty seconds.... I was 11 st. 4 lb., and he was 11 st. 3 lb. I think it was the best fight I shall ever have.” He found a better in the Ypres Salient, and again he xiii wrote:—“I cannot tell you how wonderful our men were, going straight for the first time into a fierce fire. They surpassed my utmost expectations. I have never been so fit or nearly so happy in my life before.” For such men it is impossible to sorrow. These brothers and their comrades were taken from us in the full noon of their splendid sunlight; and on its fiercest throb56 of high endeavour the brave heart of each one of them stopped beating. Their memories stand, to me, for all that may be meant, achieved, or promised in such courage, such endurance, aye, such instantaneous cataclysm57 as Mr. Bohun Lynch’s chapters at their best recall. His tale has obviously a sordid58 side, yet more evidently a brutal one. But the red thread of honourable59 resolution runs through the warp60 and woof of it; and these are not days when we may dare to minimise the value of the pluck that conquers pain.
THEODORE A. COOK.
June, 1922.
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1
quack
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| n.庸医；江湖医生；冒充内行的人；骗子 | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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7
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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8
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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plucky
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| adj.勇敢的 | |
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boxer
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| n.制箱者，拳击手 | |
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boxers
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| n.拳击短裤；（尤指职业）拳击手( boxer的名词复数 )；拳师狗 | |
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12
mace
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| n.狼牙棒，豆蔻干皮 | |
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downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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exponents
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| n.倡导者( exponent的名词复数 )；说明者；指数；能手 | |
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15
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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16
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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indicted
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| 控告，起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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requisite
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| adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品 | |
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kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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31
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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33
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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36
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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38
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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42
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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43
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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44
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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45
portrays
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| v.画像( portray的第三人称单数 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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46
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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47
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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48
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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49
stockbrokers
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| n.股票经纪人( stockbroker的名词复数 ) | |
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50
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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51
epitome
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| n.典型，梗概 | |
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52
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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53
defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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54
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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55
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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56
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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57
cataclysm
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| n.洪水，剧变，大灾难 | |
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58
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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60
warp
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| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
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