The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-05-05

WHAT Is CALLED SPORT

WHAT is CALLED SPORT"
The brutality of six days walking match
inside and outside the ring, can hardly be
realized by any one who has not witnessed
such cruel contests of physical endurance
under the intense strain to which the men are
subjected. A metropolitan paper gives the
following description:
"The man who went to the scratch early
Monday morning looking as though he had
Just emerged from the fountain of eternal
youth is OH Friday in state of the most alb
iect misery. His eyes are either sunken, with
blackened ridges beneath them, or else pro-
trude from their sockets and have almost the
stare of death The ruddy color has LEFT his
cheeks and the cheek bones stand out more
prominently than those of the widest abo-
Iigne of the far West. His chest, once full, is
now sunken, his backbone has taken an out
ward curve, and he moves his Stands as though
they were Jumps of lead. His hip-joints
seem rheumatic and his knees bend with his
weight at every stride His feet and ankles
are to him as if on fire, and the track Is like
an ellipse of flames that scorch his pedal ex
tremities By that time his brain has ceased
to work on ordinary subjects. The crowd is
hardly seen by him; all that he recognizes are
the score boards, his competitors, and his hut
The latter he hates to pass, and, miserable
hOvel that it is, it is a heaven for which he
Graves"
Thoroughly in keeping with the character
of the entertainment is the coarse, grinding,
joking, gliding, smoking, swearing, reeking,
rowdying mob that patronizes it. The same
paper, from which the above excerpt is made,
4I,o foI Of &bo nd IN,
attendance
Cup against the barricade that protects the
track there is q phalanx of stout men four
deep, standing now on one leg now on the
other. Between them and the gallery of seats
is moving procession of people, so close to-
gether that they hurt each other. They are
coarse but good-natured They make audible
remarks that cannot be printed; they abuse
each other with fierce badinage; they gibe each
other on the success of their man, they use
oaths, obscenity and slaugh ter-house jokes.
One secs in little while that the spirit of
nationality gives a color to this scene. If the
band plays an Irish air $500 Threats yelp like
wolves Il it plays ''God Save the Queen"
$500 bay like mastiffs. There is cloud of
Irish tobacco-smoke and fog of incense from
English breaths fighting for supremacy over
the arena. 1t is the old battle of Celt and
Saxon. Near the entrance, where the in
pressing crowd is densest and cruelest there is
a fight. A snarl of voices, CLEAN of clubs,
a leap of stalwart policemen, and it is over.
The crowd laugh carelessly and press on. Pres
emily there is commotion in the gallery.
A shout, an epithet blow and the thirty
thousand eyes all turn in that direction. A
moment later a little gust of heartless laugh
ter blows across the sea of faces, and that is
all. Over at the Fourth avenue end of the
arena woman faints, about 9 o'clock, and
they pull her out of the living. mass in the
gallery and hand her over the barricade like
corpse She wears black alpaca dress some,
what rusty. She is evidently a mother. The
crowd does not spare her It is without ex-
ception the most ruthless assemblage that was
ever gathered under roof in New York.
Even the smuggling matches brought with them
a flavor of rough magnanimity. Every time
the bulletin is changed it breaks out in defiant
cheers One feels that it is not the applause
of fair play nor the admiration of pluck and
endurance, but the exultatiOn for our man.
1t had an ugly tone"
1t may not have occurred to the authorities
of New York, but the clements are here from
An army of 15,0O0-the rakings of the city's
rabble-the sluggers and shoulder hitters, the
garroters, pickpockets, and thieves all the
desperate men of the city, of high and low
degree, are there, and there continuously there
to cheer and to bully, to wrangle and to fight,
and to riot, if necessary An impulse is all
that is needed to set the blood flowing, and
nearly every one Of those thousands would be
transformed into a demon. There is always
danger there The occasion passed this time
but it may come the next time 1t is a peril
GUS thing to allow the assembling and excite
ment of the city's worst elements. Men
who individually live by theft and violence
collectively would not hesitate to burn the
city and TO massacre the inhabitants.