The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1866-06-15
A Sham Battle.

A Snam Battle.
JOHN BULL has recently been greatly dis
gusted. Two amiable and muscular speci-
mems ofhumanity went out the other day to
fight for the championship, and purse of
sovereigns, and great crowd Of people as
sembled to witness the innocent encounter
But alas these recreant bruisers, unmindflll
of the historic glories of the TIProN SLAsHER,
and oblivious of the fame of plucky Tom
SAVERS, whose fstic exploits the great Mr.
THAcKARY himself condesccnds to chronicle
in the Roundabout Papers )" forgetful Of the
honors of the Prize Ring, and ignorant of the
magnificent report of that classic "Mill" be-
tween DAREs and ENTELLEs, which p VIR-
GILIUs MARC has transmitted to posterity,
disappointed the spectators, and initiated
couple of innocent Dutch windmills by throw
ing their arms about in perfectly innocuous,
not to say absurd and ridiculous manner. The
people who went out to witness the rib-punch-
ing, skul-cracking, eye-bunging, caret-
drawing amusement were of course DISCUS
JOHN BULL, whose pluck and muscle are
above all sneerS, and the spectators beheld
the sham battle with absolute disgust 1t
was a departure from all precedent and a
thing without parallel. We fancy that the
muscular christians who crowded round the
ropes, sighed for an hour of honest Tom SAY
ERs, and would even have hailed the appear
ance of the magnificent Mr.. HEENAN with
rapturous applause. To complete the dis
comforts of the day, the 'beaks" invaded the
classic ground dedicated to this Olympic sport;
and a charming row immediately occurred, in
the course of which, several of the guardians
of the law were very roughly handled by
disguised amateurs.
There is a moral in this story, as indeed
there is in all such The men who engage in
these brutal encounters, in which the paltry
prize of the champions belt is still further
degraded by stake in absolute tin, thus
blending fstic renown with pecunary re-
ward, undergo an amount of priyation, and
display self-denial, which, if exhibited in
any other behalf, would excite our admira-
ton.
They live upon the most frugal lare-they
take the most severe exercse-they walk
twenty miles day-they contine themselves
to preposterous quart of beer, and resolutely
eschew the more congenial tipple of blue
ruin. They abandon their favorite tap-room
seclude themselves from their admiring fir ends
and bid farewell to the Establishments of to-
bacco, with all the fortitude, if not with all
the grace, of CHARLES LAMB. They come
into the ring with muscles like steel and skins
like satin, and all this for the purpose Of ham
mering and being hammered, for ,paltry
consideration. For any other purpose, then
sef-denial would be noble but prostituted tc
this it disgusts us. sEsas Et4..ga
Nevertheless the crowned heads and The
prime ministers OF this world, much as many
of them would shrink from witnessing pli-
gistic battle, are no better than the burly
gladiators themselves Not bit. Indeed
not SO good. They go into training, but they
eat, and drink, and smoke, and are merry all
the time. They fight for the champions belt
and purse, which has boundary line, OF 4
province tucked in it, and the hard knock,
fall on the ribs and skulls of other people, So
after all we conclude with modern philoso
pher, that there is a great deal of human ma.
ture in man" be he prize fighter or king.
------ ~ s77 n