The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-20 00:00:00

AMATEUR OR PROFESSIONAL ?

The following excellent argument appears in the
current number of our c'ever contemporary the
Spectator• ; being published there in the form of a
letter to that journal from the pen of Mr. Thomas
Hughes, the author of "Tom Brown's Schooldays."
It is worth reading, as the name of its writer
itself guarantees it to be :
As the subject of sports has been started in connec-
tion with the discussion about the recent fight, I shruld
like to say a few words upon it, if you will allow me.
While some papers are going in for giving legal
sanction to the Prize Ring, others are abusing boxing as
a brutal sport. This seems to me as great a mistake as
the other ; I believe that boxing has done, and will continue
to do, great good in England. Boys and certain classes
of man must always fight more or less, and surely it is a
very desirable thing that they should fight with as little
danger as possible to life and limb. Now we English have
attained this desirable result. We have abolished the use of
knives and bludgeons in our quarrels, of all weapons, in
short, except natural ones. We have gone much further.
When two unarmed men stand up to fight, there seems to
be no reason prima facie, why they should not kick or butt
one another, or strike foul blows, or gouge out one
another's eyes. But we in England have done away with
all this brutality, and (with very few local exceptions)
there is scarcely a village in the kingdom in which a
man could with impunity kick or strike his adversary
when down. We owe this comparative humanity to the
practice of boxing. The well-known rules which govern
the sport keep us from the murderous and cowardly prac-
tices of other countries.

" I know that in urging this I leave myself open to the
retort that these rules are the prize-ring rules, and that
there would have been no such system of fair fighting
as we have in England but for the Ring, and that we shall
lose it with prize-fighting. I deny this. The rules pre-
ceded prize-fighting, as I think any one may satisfy him-
self who will take the trouble. I admit that the c ramon
law customs (so to speak) of boxing have been codified by the
authorities of the prize-ring—and lot them have whatever
credit they may be entitled to for this—but the customs ex-
isted with few exceptions before there was any prize-fight-
ing—and that they do not depend on prize-fig,hting, and will
not be likely to fall into disuse should we happily get rid
of the ring, I think is fairly deducible from the fact that
they are just as fully recognised now as ever they were;
though the prize-ring has sunk into the depths of decay
and blackguardism.

"The fact is, that as the country gets richer, and the
number of unfortunate people with nothing particular to do
in the world—almost the most dangerous of the dangerous
classes—increases, there is a constant tendency with us
to turn sports into serious pursuits, and as surely as a
sport is turned intu a serious pursuit or profession it be-
comes mischievous and demoralising. I believe the rule to
hold good in the case of every one of our national po-
pular sports. Boxing has been already sufficiently die•
cussed. The professional bruiser and his satellites are the
result of introducing prizes, and making it possible for men
to live, however precariously, by the ring. Look at horse
racing; 50 years ago gentlemen in every county bred a few
horses, and ran them at their county meetings. We have
turned the money tap on, and now almost all of the county
meetings have disappeared, and we have instead the mon-
ster meetings at Newmarket, Epsom, &c. County gentle-
tlemen have given up breeding, and running their own
horses, and have been succeeded by stable boys and jockeys,
who have risen to be trainers by their sharpness, and by
gentlemen who have doubts about the spelling of well•
known words. We all know something of the morality of
the betting ring on the turf, I don't think that the present
state of horse racing ought to encourage us to go on turn.
ing sports into trades or professions. Take field sports.
Our gentry have turned them, in many instances, into pro-
fessions, and round the gentleman professionals has grown
up a large class of inferior professional men, in the shape of
keepers, watchers, &c.—with what benefit to the country
let the Assizes and Game-law Amendment Acts witness.
I will add nothing as to those landlords who descend a step
lower, and turn their sport into a trade by selling game.
The professional point of view is enough for my purpose.
"Look at cricket again. This noble game is anything
but benefitted by the pursuit of it as a profession or trade
by so many in late years. Gentlemen and players are
alike injured by making it the object of their lives, and,
moreover, the romance of the game is fast disappearing.
Any one who knew the game twenty years ago could gene-
rally tell you where any given player came from after
watching him for an over or two. Each school, again, had
its own style; and hits, such as the Winchester barters and
the Harrow drives, were handed on from one generation to
another, and became a part of the school inheritance. Now,
one eleven of boys trained by one professional is just like
another in play.

" Fortunately boating has been saved from the fate of her
sister games, by the simple fact, that gentlemen can't, in
after-life, make rowing a profession. So there is not a
living to be made out of the sport only, and the professional
waterman has to make his bread otherwise, and is much
benpfitted by the necessity, which keeps him generally a
respectable and useful member of society. The theory that
you must have professional men to train if you are to have
excellence in any sport, must meet the fact that in this, one
of the most scientific of our sports, all the most famous
crews have been trained by gentleman amateurs, such as
Shadwell, Egan, or Morrison.
"Wrestling and cudgel-playing stand much in the same
category as boating. There isn't a regular living to be made
out of them. They remain sports, and consequently the pro-
fesrors are not demoralised. In the parts of the country I
know best they are well-conducted, civil men, living by
shepherding, ploughing, or other agricultural work, in an
ordinary way.

" I think I have gone through more than enough of our
national sports to prove my point, which is, that we cannot
make sports into the serious business of men's lives without
injuring them and spoiling the sports. What our dangerous
classes are to do for work—how they are to find any seri-
ous business in life for themselves—it is no part of my
business to consider. There seems plenty of work lying
about, somehow, on all sides, which wealthy and educated
men might take to with advantage. They would go back
to their sports with a zest which they have not felt since
they left college, if they would try it,"