The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-12
THE BATTLE IN THE WEST.

mean the limited lake and not the unlimited
stock) are vexed with rumors of approaching
strife. There are those, perchance, among
us from whose memories hath not yet wholly
faded that famous tale of an elder day which
embalms the valor of American sailors in a
contest which humbled the red-cross flag
within sight of the Canadian shores. But the
battle whereof Erie now tremblingly awaits
the awful shock is a battle by land and not by
water Neither the sunburst of Erin nor the
stars and stripes waved for war over the ves-
sells which Wednesday night steamed forth
upon the bosom of the great inland sea. To
use, with a slight modification, the prophetic
words spoken by King Arthur to Sir Bedi-
we're, ID .-. .s.l ".
'rFar other is this battle in the West
we S move AM ha9 r wneh fhS we s5Sye ia yGq
And shook him thro' the North" 4.
Many an ''eerie sight" has Erie seen, from
the days in which the heroic Perry bore forth
the flag of the young republic toscontend with
the veterans of Nelson to these in which
James Fisk, Jr., has contrived to make his
''Name and glory cling
TO her high places like golden cloud
Forever"
But the spectacle which her waters up
bore to the pensive moon precluded in all
human probability, conflict in which the
elements of battle and of bet, of valor as
fierce as that of the vikings of Perry, and of
Rothschild of opera bouffe, will be COM
bined to give the sporting world assurance
of a man.
If any ghosts of the Six Nations haunt
those shores, once the happy hunting grounds
of their dusky race they were in ease to see
full many
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they wereware
That all the decks were dense with stately FORMS"
1t is a curious and possibly not
wholly uninstructive fact that we inherit
our ancient British love for what
our fathers styled the ''manly art of
self. defense" from the highly classical age of
Queen Anne. Neither the naked Picts, from
whom, as Mr.. Ireland tells us, Prince Vorti-
germs grandfather contrived to win painted
waistcoat, nor the bearded, beer-drinking,
skull-smitiHg sons of Scandinavia, nor the
solid, sturdy Saxons, knew any more or prac-
tised any more of pugilism than the abort
gines of America. Broughton and Figg, its
earliest authentic masters, seem to have been
developed under the influence of classical
studies for the delight of an aristocracy
trained to believe in Virgil and in Homer
more devoutly than in st. John and st. Mat
thew. The boxers of that Augustan period
did not indeed absolutely despise the Geo.
nomical aspects of their profession. They
had their hackers, they laid their money, and
they pocketed their proceeds But the light
of chivalry had not yet wholly faded from the
world. AS Keats puts it,
'Fair plumes were dancing In the eye"
even of cock-fghting peers and of wrestling
pumpkins; and there fell upon the sawdust
and the ring, as it were, a
"Harmless glamour OF the field"
which half redeemed the dull plebeian pound
| ings of the athlete into a vague reminiscence
| of the old romantic close of night with knight
| s'for God and for the ladieS!"
| All this has vanished now. Doubtless the
original prize-fghting of old England was a
compact of mingled good and i'll. SO, too, for
tho matter of that, was the tourney of the
| feudal times.
| Wss many noble deed, many base
| And chance, and craft, and strength, In single
| fights"
But in our degenerate days battles such as
that of Erie have become the merest mat
ters of business. Far without the charmed
inner circle of the combatants and their
friends there extends indeed huge penumbra
of the average population among whom the
merits of the champions are considered and
the result of their conflict is weighed in q
spirit not wholly alien from the ancient battle
ardor. We suspect that if the truth were
told there are to be found even among the
gentler sex and in the serene air of fashions
own heaven not few tender-hearted crea
lures who would faint at the sight of q
friendly set-to with the gloves, yet who will
snatch kind of fearful joy from the story OF
desperate trial in the ring, under the hallu
cination that it really sets forth a manly en-
counter of man with man for the proving OF
his manhood. u .--ss -.I-s-r a, r.f.f Il. ID.
But it is not of these that the boxers are
thinking when they go forth to box, nor fol
the love and praise of these that they CON
tend. The often quoted remark of Buffor
that ''the horse is a noble animal, takes
new life from every well contested race; fo
while it is perfectly clear that the racers car
take no possible interest in the conflict, saw
in the exercise to which it calls them of thei
utmost powers, it is not less clear that the,
do take such an interest in it. But the human
combatants in such battle in the West as wa
to have been waged yesterday, are neryed t,
energy and made tough to endure by tn
same ignoble motives as those which kindl
the 'heathen Chinee" to master the unfa
miliar mysteries of poker, or make the averag
! Republican politician swift and skilful to fiat
ter out the foibles of President Grant
OUR MAY MEETINGS.
From the N. Y. Times. ....H
1t would be difficult to imagine more in
opportune commentary upon the neatly con
} structed theories of the May meetings thai
the results of Tuesdays riots at Scranton
' Here in New York we have the Reforn
, League inviting capital and labor "to NEE
at once on equal terms, and, 9acknowledginl
each others rights, to arrange their relation
on the basis of justice aud fair division o
| the common profits. Just about the sam
time as this panacea for the great social dif
' fculty of the time was being made public
we had the spectacle in Pennsylvania o
/ | IL