Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-06-16
PRIZE RING LITERATURE.

PRIZE RING LITERATURE.
The public journals continue to serve up delec.
table dishes of the brutalities of the prize-ring,
which the people evidently accept as a feast of fat
things: Now and then u leading paper after occu'
pying several columns with the most disgusting de-
tails of fighting, will add a paragraph of editorial
in condemnation, either as a matter Of good taste,
or as an evidence of a latent consciousness of the
IMPROPERLY Of clarifying this barbarous p~ugilism.
The only decided opposition, that we have seen, has
been on the part Of the New York police, who,
with clubs in hand have 1ppared on the spot, and
dispersed with those effective weapons the deprav-
cd assemblies, that have been gathered to zee ONE
lesser Heenan and lesser Sayers, tear cut each
others eyes, or beat each other into a s~hapeless
mass if possible.
In England the demand for fighting literature
appears to be even greater than here. About the
time of the 'internatiOnal fight the newspaper
agents state that the sale of papers surpassed
anything ever known. During all of the terrible
excitement Of the Crimean aud Indian war no
such sale was ever reached. The capture Of Sc
~bastipol, the relief of Lucknow, the battle of Sal
ferinor had not such an effect upon the public
mind. AS the Legitimate fruit Of tolerating prize
lighting, and giving such prominence to the en-
counter between SaSers and IIeenan, witness the
following:
The celebrated battle of Farnsborough was
fought on the 18th of April. On the 9th, Thorn,
as Woodgate and Charles Dixon had q pugilistic
encounter near London, which resulted in the
death of the latter. Ga the 30th George Henry
Tyler and Thomas Miller entered the ring al
Brompton, intending to sottle an ancient feud
with the fist and according to the approved rules
Of the P. II. Miller was carried away from thu
field a corpse
But it is not the encouragement thus given t
the already depraved that is so much to BIO depra
Gated as the influence upon the rising generation
At a lIeenan Club meeting in Cooper Institute re
Gently, a CAPT, Turner, who, says one of our Da:
lies, is the PEER il not tn, r presenta i e. of n larg
class of men in this city who make our laws, con
troll our elections, and assume a respectabillt
which they maintain by the power of force an
numbers, e~ulogized Heenan and commended hi
example to the youth of America. This, howov
er, considering its source, would probably be les
effective than tie general tone Of the press, whicI
says, W admire our Tom, he is game from th
head to the foot And again, 'Heenan is a nobl
fellow neither Sayers nor the public expecte'
, so much pluck This is but a tame specimen o
the praise awarded to these desperadoes. 1t vii
DO strange indeed if thus sowing the wind we d
not reap the whirlwind.
Now physical courage is good, it is praise worthy
That courage, for instance, that caused the Primo
of Orange to say on a memorable occasion, "ll
dc in the last ditch" that courage that cause
Walker and his brave companions to hold out q
the seige of Londonderry and cry "No Surrender;
and when famine hal so exhausted their strength
that the voice became very feeble, still they crie
'No Surrender. We will first eat the horses ant
hides, then the prisoners, and then each other;'
that courage which enables the martyr to wall
triun phantly to tho stake, cannot DO too mucl
admired, for it is sanctifed by motives that involv
the highest and the dearest interests of men an,
Of nations. But that sort of bravery, which, for n
motive save a trial of brute strength, says 'NO'
see if l cannot blind and main and disfgure you
before you shall injure me, see if l cannot brea
your bones, pull off your cheek, bung your eye
: before you can do the like to me-" is brutal i
: the extreme, ~fearfully demoralizing in its inf,
d ence and deserves the unmi igated Reproduction
5 every friend of good morals.
s The International character of the great fgl
becomes absurd when we consider that the con
o batants were both of Irish parentage, their pa
. ents living within fifty miles of each other
Ireland; so after all it is Irish valor, Irish pluc
Irish endurance, that England and America a
J, clarifying as their own. -