The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-02 00:00:00

frequently a mere misunderstanding, by seeking
each other's lives by one of the deadliest of
human devices. A boxer is. "S.-.man who fights
with his fists"—with' what nature herself has
provided, him to fight with—if fight, at any
time, he must. And if fighting be an evil—which
certainly' we acknowledge it is, and more espe-
cially fighting in personal combat, and for per-
sonal objects—to fight with his fists were assu-
redly the least evil in such a case—immeasurably
less than' to fight with swords, or daggers, or
pistols.
We cannot but agree, therefore, with the
Saturday Review, that at anyrate the popular
preference for the bravery and pluck of SAYERS
and HEENAN to the so-called heroism of such an
one as ORSINI, is a gain to civilisation. "If you
were to inquire throughout England," says our
sober-minded contemporary,
." you would find
that, wherever you got among men of active
habits, hardy frames, and ready courage, there
existed a disposition to uphold prize-fighting.
If you lOoked along ,the front of a regiment on
parade, and picked out the smartest soldier you
could see there, you would discover by a few
questions that he took an intelligent interest in
the battle for the champion's belt." And nothing
could be more natural, if not also more reason-
able than this. Courage, even physical courage,
must of necessity interest and concern the cou-
rageous. For they are those who think-of a man
as BEN JONSON did, that— •

" His'valour is the salt t' his other virtues :
They're all unseason'd without it."
So that there is a good deal of propriety in the
remark, that " it is one way of dealing with this
widespread taste for boxing to deny its general
existence, and to discourage and denounce its
manifestations. Another, perhaps a better way,
is to endeavour to regulate and improve a practice
which we cannot extirpate." Since we have
only to look around us to see, that "nothing is
more certain than that the passion for sports
which many worthy people call coarse and brutal
and barbarous is a principal characteristic of the
classes from which the ranks of the British army
are chiefly drawn."
If we regard it as a popular pastime, it is true,
we have it presented to us in another and a
somewhat different aspect ; though still as involv-
ing many of those by no means censurable ad-
j inlets and manifestations to which' we have been
adverting. But then, in this view of the subject,
it is to be borne in mind that the people must have
their sports and pastimes ; and if society will not
take care to prepare them for what is rational and
refined, they will naturally become addicted to
such as are of an opposite character. Nor is
boxing by any means one of the worst of that
character,—very far from it. It is a manly diver-
sion, and one that may be useful as an art, as well
as amusing as a sport. The working classes,
above all, are surely entitled to their recreations ;
and these will ever be the 'most acceptable to
them as diversions and pleasures. The masses,
we say, who toil day by day, and all day long,
with but too little relief, have a right to their
enjoyments. We only wish they had more of
them, and of a better kind than they have. But,
as Dr. JOHNSON justly remarks, " the public
pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are
counterfeit. Very few carry their philosophy to
places of diversion, or are very careful to analyse
their enjoyments. The general condition of life
is so full of misery, that we are glad to catch
delight without inquiring whence it comes, or by
what power it is bestowed."